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lovejuice
11-17-2007, 01:10 AM
should we separate this out? i mean a lot of people here are into sci-fi more than other kind of books.

http://www.aural-innovations.com/robertcalvert/collab/images/moorcock/beholdthemancover.jpg

i'm reading this. good stuffs so far. we'll see. we'll see.

D_Davis
11-17-2007, 01:43 AM
Cool. I just started a thread like this at another forum.

That cover to Behold the Man is awesome.



I am about half way through A Case of Conscience, and it is pretty good so far. Not as elegant or poetic as Bester or Sturgeon, but at its core is a very interesting concept.

Basically, it is about a planet called Lithia. A group of 4 scientists have been sent there to determine whether or not Earthlings could colonize the planet without disrupting its ecology in a negative way. One of the scientists is a biologist, and a Jesuit priest. The planet, and its inhabitants, are utterly perfect. The have no crime, no violence, no thievery, no selfishness, nothing bad at all. They don't even have words for these acts or ill feelings.

The ecosystem is perfect as well, as everything on the planet shares a one-on-one relationship with something else. The Lithians, lizard-like beings, are totally moral and totally logical. Their offspring evolve outside of a womb. They evolve in the ocean into fish, then onto land as amphibians, then as marsupial-reptiles. By the time they are adults they have experienced every kind of terrain and habitat and have built up immunities to anything that could harm them.

So yes - Lithia is a perfect planet. Too perfect. Except for one thing: the Lithians have no concept of God, faith, or religion. This leads the biologist priest to believe that the planet has been created by Satan as a kind of temptation for mankind. However, according to dogmatic law, Satan cannot create tangible things, only illusion. Because the priest testifies that Lithia is a trap created by Satan, he is also in danger of heresy for putting forth a hypothesis that goes against dogmatic law.

At the half way point the scientists have returned to Earth, and now the priest must come to terms with his questions of faith, God, Satan, a moral society without faith, and a heretical hypothesis that could undo thousands of years of Church doctrine.

It was written in 1953, and it is considered one of the first sci-fi books to tackle religious themes in a serious way. James Blish, the author and an agnostic, won the Hugo award for it. I highly recommend it even if it the actual execution is not quite up to par with some of the other greats.

megladon8
11-17-2007, 02:10 AM
Allow me to use this opportunity to once again pimp out "I Am Legend".

Especially to D. :)

The last sci-fi I read was Dick's "Galactic Pot-Healer" - my first Dick-experience (hahaha) and I really enjoyed it.

D_Davis
11-17-2007, 02:17 AM
Allow me to use this opportunity to once again pimp out "I Am Legend".

Especially to D. :)


I'll get around to it. Just not in a horror mood right now.

megladon8
11-17-2007, 02:19 AM
I'll get around to it. Just not in a horror mood right now.


Well, it's horror/sci-fi.

I definitely wouldn't say that the book's main goal is to scare.

D_Davis
11-17-2007, 02:24 AM
Well, it's horror/sci-fi.

I definitely wouldn't say that the book's main goal is to scare.

Oh I know. I don't think of horror as exclusively "scarry."

I've already got my reading planned out for the next couple of months. IAL will be in the next batch.

megladon8
11-17-2007, 02:33 AM
Oh I know. I don't think of horror as exclusively "scarry."

I've already got my reading planned out for the next couple of months. IAL will be in the next batch.


Sweet :)

I am planning on going to the library tomorrow to look for some used books - they often have a big selection of sci-fi.

lovejuice
11-17-2007, 05:23 AM
http://www.aural-innovations.com/robertcalvert/collab/images/moorcock/beholdthemancover.jpg


this book is awesome. i'm skeptic at first since the story is nothing short of predictable. (it's written in 1969, so i guess i have to cut moorcock some credit on originality.) and i dislike the way he portrays psychological turmoil by stringing a bunch of semi-random quotations. the first half is slow. yet much better past the midpoint. once rolls the last third, the novel really comes together thematically. moorcock presents this beautiful study of religion, faith, and sacrifice.

D_Davis
11-21-2007, 02:16 PM
A Case of Conscience (1959) - James Blish

I've always been interested in the exploration of religious themes in fiction, especially in science fiction. This is one of the main reasons why I am so drawn to the work of Philip K. Dick. When I first read about James Blish's Hugo award winning novel A Case for Conscience, it sounded like the perfect book for me. It tells the story of Father Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez, a man of the cloth and a man of science; in addition to being a priest, Father Ramon is also a distinguished biologist. He is sent, together with a small group of scientists, to the distant planet Lithia to measure the social and ecological impact of an Earthmen colonization. What Father Ramon discovers is something that may be far too sinister to ignore, and something that may, in fact, challenge his own faith and thousands of years of church dogma.

At its core, A Case of Conscience offers up an interesting premise while it also asks some important questions. It deals with the discovery of an alien society that is totally moral; they have no crime, no violence, they do not lie, and they are not bad in any way, as a matter of fact, they completely lack the words and references for these things. The planet, too, is a representation of perfection; its biology, geology, and ecology all work in tandem to form a perfect ecosystem. Everything on the planet is perfect, too perfect, at least as far as Father Ramon is concerned.

Father Ramon discovers what he perceives to be a singular flaw: the Lithians have no concept of faith, God, or religion of any kind. It is Father Ramon's hypothesis that the planet has been created by Satan to ensnare humanity in some kind of trap. However, according to dogmatic law, Satan can only create illusion and cannot create anything tangible. Ramon's hypothesis is not only controversial to the secular scientists, but it also leads him down a road paved with heresy towards his church's dogmatic law.

As I sit here and pound out the above description, it is with some disappointment. Unfortunately, Blish never really delivers on the incredible premise he sets up in the first third of his novel, and by the midpoint he almost lost me completely. One of the first problems is with the writing itself. Now, this may not be fare to Blish, but I have recently been spoiled by Theodore Sturgeon and Alfred Bester, two masterclass wordsmiths. A Case for Conscience simply lacks the poetic prose needed to convey such an emotional and spiritual topic.

The prose is not necessarily bad but it is only serviceable, and when an idea as ambitious as Blish's is conveyed in a less than remarkable way, it accentuates the drabness. The biggest problem with the novel's execution is the dialog: it's too on the nose. The characters always seem to say exactly what they mean, and most of the narrative's mystery is told rather than shown. Plot points that should have been revelatory discoveries full of majesty are simply told to the reader through uninteresting dialog and exposition, like utterances of little importance. Imagine being told how amazing Yosemite is after passing up a chance to see it for yourself.

Another major problem is chapter eleven. Alright, maybe I should back up a bit to give some perspective. First of all, let me give some praise, because there are some things beyond the premise that I really do like. It all starts out brilliantly with the central characters already on Lithia. That we don't have to wait for the excursion to get underway, nor do we have to sit through pages of exposition waiting for the alien planet to arrive, is a welcome turn of events. This is good, the plot gets rolling from the first chapter, and pushes right along until about chapter ten, but then by chapter eleven I feel as though the book gets derailed, in a bloody, gory, massive train-wreck kind of way.

Chapter ten is the first chapter of the second part of the book, and its almost as if this part was written by a different author who forgot what the first part was about. Unimportant new characters are introduced, Father Ramon is forgotten about for a long passages, and nothing interesting or of note happens. But chapter eleven is the worse! It's one of my least favorite things I have ever read. It introduces a totally insipid situation that just doesn't make any sense, and offers up nothing in terms of believable character development or engaging narration. You could probably rip this chapter out of the book and not miss a thing. It's as if Blish switched gears in between the two parts of his book, and decided to focus on a different premise than the one he initially set off with, one that is not nearly as interesting or well developed.

Unfortunately, the book never regained my interest after this crucial juncture. This book is like a roller-coaster with only one hill. It starts off great, and then, with each passing chapter, it becomes less and less interesting. I could hardly bring my self to finish the last fifty pages because I simply didn't care about anything that was happening or anyone it was happening to. So yeah, this review turned out really negative, and it saddens me in a way. However, I am only this down on the novel because of how great it's premise and beginning are. It was like being promised a cake and then finding that the cake was a lie (sorry Portal, but I had to do it). I will say this about James Blish though - his imagination has piqued my interest, and even though I cannot recommend A Case of Conscience, I am looking forward to reading more from this author.

MadMan
11-22-2007, 12:54 AM
Awesome write ups Davis-I'll have to check out some of those books.

Some of the sci-fi novels I've read:

2001: A Space Odyssy by Sir Arthur C. Clarke
Jurassic Park-Micheal Crichton
The Lost World-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Ender's Game-Orson Scott Card
Fahrenheit 451-Ray Bradbury
1984-George Orwell
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-Douglas Addams

D_Davis
11-22-2007, 04:41 AM
Awesome write ups Davis-I'll have to check out some of those books.

2001: A Space Odyssy by Sir Arthur C. Clarke


Thanks. If I could suggest one, it would be The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester.

I have not read 2001 yet, but today I ordered Childhood's End by Clarke. This will be my first Clarke book.

Just today, I started my first Asimov book, The Gods Themselves. It is awesome.

MadMan
11-22-2007, 04:43 AM
Thanks. If I could suggest one, it would be The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester.

I have not read 2001 yet, but today I ordered Childhood's End by Clarke. This will be my first Clarke book.

Just today, I started my first Asimov book, The Gods Themselves. It is awesome.I've never heard of Bester or that book. I'm intriegued though. I regretfully haven't read Childhood's End, especially since I've liked everything I've read from Clarke. And I must confess I have yet to read any of Asimov either despite hearing really great things about this books.

D_Davis
11-22-2007, 04:53 AM
I've never heard of Bester or that book. I'm intriegued though. I regretfully haven't read Childhood's End, especially since I've liked everything I've read from Clarke. And I must confess I have yet to read any of Asimov either despite hearing really great things about this books.

Yeah, it is pretty weird. I've always considered myself a fan of science fiction, but once I started this Hugo project I quickly realized that I've only ever explored a very, very small niche of the genre. I tend to do this with things. With sci-fi, I've gotten into a few authors, and only focused on them while turning my back on others. Usually this is for the best, because as Sturgeon's law states: 90% of all science fiction is crud, but then 90% of everything is crud.

It's hard to find that 10% worth reading, and so I've always played it safe and only read the bona fide masters that I know I like:

Bester, Ballard, Bradbury, Sturgeon, Dick, Moorcock, Rucker, and Harrison.

But now I am forcing myself to branch out by using the Hugo award as a map. I've now read my first Blish book, I just started my first Asimov, and then I will be reading some Le Guin, Silverberg, and Delany among others. It's going to be awesome.

Here is a link to a review for the Bester book. Just read it man, it is a masterpiece. Bester was one of the most important figures in the pantheon of science fiction - he acted as the bridge between the golden era and the new wave, and planted the seeds for the cyberpunk movement. He is considered one of the grandfathers of literary science fiction.

http://genrebusters.com/print/review_demoman.htm

SpaceOddity
11-22-2007, 08:55 AM
I have not read 2001 yet, but today I ordered Childhood's End by Clarke. This will be my first Clarke book.


*liked*

megladon8
11-29-2007, 04:31 AM
As I mentioned in D's A Canticle for Liebowitz thread, I have several sci-fi books on my shelf which have been there for quite a long time - in fact, a few of them I have had for 10 years.

Anyone read any of these?


"Earth is Room Enough" - Isaac Asimov
"Foundation and Empire" - Isaac Asimov
"The Planet That Wasn't" - Isaac Asimov
"Isaac Asimov's 'Ghosts'" - a collection of shorts, compiled by Asimov
"2010: Odyssey Two" by Arthur C. Clarke
"3001: The Final Odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke
"Rendezvous With Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke
"The Alien Dark" by Diana G. Gallagher
"Burning Chrome" by William Gibson
"Count Zero" by William Gibson
"Neuromancer" by William Gibson
"Starship Troopers" by Robert A. Heinlein
"The Jesus Incident" by Frank Herbert & Bill Ransom
"The Ark" by Ben Jeapes
"Outbanker" by Timothy A. Madden
"Ringworld" by Larry Niven
"The Tarnsall Saga" by Gary Paulsen
"Armor" by John Steakley

lovejuice
11-29-2007, 05:16 AM
"2010: Odyssey Two" by Arthur C. Clarke


Odyssey the books, imo, are very different from Kubrick's vision. i'll say, it's worth checking out, but if you're really the fan of the movie, it's more likely that you'll be disappointed by it.

i on the other hand prefer the books, and no, i don't think of the movie that highly.

megladon8
11-29-2007, 05:27 AM
Odyssey the books, imo, are very different from Kubrick's vision. i'll say, it's worth checking out, but if you're really the fan of the movie, it's more likely that you'll be disappointed by it.

i on the other hand prefer the books, and no, i don't think of the movie that highly.


Yes, I have heard this from many.

Apparently "2001: A Space Odyssey" the book is much more of a straightforward science fiction story, rather than an existential and experimental mindfuck.

Melville
11-29-2007, 05:41 AM
"2010: Odyssey Two" by Arthur C. Clarke
"3001: The Final Odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke
"Rendezvous With Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke

I've read these. The first two are pretty silly, expanding on the story of 2001 in completely uninteresting ways. Rama is kind of pointless: astronauts explore an alien spaceship, briefly discuss why large-breasted women shouldn't be allowed in zero-gravity situations, and then leave the spaceship. I don't think any of the three are particularly worth reading, but I think our tastes are pretty dissimilar, so you might get something out of them. I've heard that the Rama series as a whole is significantly better than the first book alone.

lovejuice
11-29-2007, 05:50 AM
i used to translate clark's 900 page collection of short stories, so i'm quite sick of him. he seems a pretty banal guy with occasionally good idea. too optimistic for my taste.

to be fair though, i belive 2001 was actually cowritten by kubrick.

D_Davis
11-29-2007, 06:05 AM
"Neuromancer" by William Gibson


I would read this. Even though I didn't really like it the last time a read it, I still think it is required reading for the genre. It is an interesting landmark that really was a great influence on so many things, and while not the first cyberpunk story, not by a long shot, it introduced and popularized many of the things we now consider a part of that milieu.

D_Davis
11-29-2007, 01:58 PM
i used to translate clark's 900 page collection of short stories, so i'm quite sick of him.

Did you do this professionally?

lovejuice
11-29-2007, 03:06 PM
Did you do this professionally?

yes, in a sense that i got paid for it.

it's this one.

http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/clarke.jpg

D_Davis
11-29-2007, 03:19 PM
yes, in a sense that i got paid for it.

it's this one.

http://www.sfsite.com/%7Esilverag/clarke.jpg

That's awesome. Did you translate these into Thai?

lovejuice
11-29-2007, 03:26 PM
That's awesome. Did you translate these into Thai?

yes. sadly only language beside english that i'm proficient.

it's kinda awesome at first, but the damn thing takes me two long years -- did i mention it's freaking 900 pages! and after all, not that well paid off. clarke has never been well known for his shorts. and i got 100 bathes (about $10 after adjusting for living standard in thailand) for a page.

D_Davis
11-29-2007, 03:49 PM
yes. sadly only language beside english that i'm proficient.

it's kinda awesome at first, but the damn thing takes me two long years -- did i mention it's freaking 900 pages! and after all, not that well paid off. clarke has never been well known for his shorts. and i got 100 bathes (about $10 after adjusting for living standard in thailand) for a page.

I can't imagine the time and effort this must have taken. definitely not something I would like to do. I can totally see how doing something like this might make you totally tired of an author, especially one who you may not be all that enthused with from the get go.

How did you get involved with this project?

lovejuice
11-29-2007, 03:55 PM
How did you get involved with this project?

i held a job as a translater for a publishing house. aside from clarke's, i also did a few kiddie, one biography, and a mathematic text. i don't do that anymore. after my writing career was lanched, this job sucks in comparison.

lovejuice
11-29-2007, 06:30 PM
back to clarke. i don't want to give him too much shit. if anything, odyssey is a basic for MAPS, one of the best manga series about operatic space adventures. besides, he belongs to a different breed of writers. clarke is very humanistic. (some adjective i've never associated with kubrick.) he believes in goodness deep-rooted inside human heart, our potential to develope out-of-the-universe technology and use it for good cause. you don't find such person that much nowaday in literature world.

Melville
11-30-2007, 01:52 AM
i held a job as a translater for a publishing house. aside from clarke's, i also did a few kiddie, one biography, and a mathematic text. i don't do that anymore. after my writing career was lanched, this job sucks in comparison.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: you, sir, are a superstar. Seriously, how do you manage to do this stuff while completing a degree? Are you older than I think?

lovejuice
11-30-2007, 03:35 PM
I've said it before and I'll say it again: you, sir, are a superstar. Seriously, how do you manage to do this stuff while completing a degree? Are you older than I think?

translation requires discipline. it's an easy enough job for a proficient user of two languages. if you can force yourself to go on four pages a day, it'll last no more than 3 monthes for an average book.

i'm very slacking with my degree. only these past two years have i picked up gear. i'm fortunate (or damn unfortunate) enough to spend my undergrad in a hell of a science institute. my life after that is much easier in comparison.

EvilShoe
11-30-2007, 09:06 PM
I'm halfway through "So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish".
It's almost like Douglas Adams is deliberately trying to piss his fanbase off.
(To be honest, I don't loathe the book or anything, it just doesn't feel like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy at all)

lovejuice
12-07-2007, 03:07 PM
D, so what's the first book in this elric saga called? i notice three fantasy novels from moorcock, but have no idea which one to read first?

D_Davis
12-07-2007, 03:35 PM
D, so what's the first book in this elric saga called? i notice three fantasy novels from moorcock, but have no idea which one to read first?

This kind of depends on what version you read, as the Elric saga was first serialized in magazine form. I would look for the two omnibus versions that collect all of the original parts, in narrative order. I believe these stories were published in a different order.

Here is the listing of the individual books:

Elric of Melniboné (novel, Hutchinson 1972, cut vt The Dreaming City 1972 US; DAW 1977)
The Sailor on the Seas of Fate (collection, Quartet 1976; DAW 1977)
The Weird of the White Wolf (collection, DAW 1977)
The Sleeping Sorceress (novel, NEL 1971; Ace 1971 as The Vanishing Tower; DAW 1977)
The Bane of the Black Sword (collection, DAW 1977)
Stormbringer (novel, fix-up, cut, Herbet Jenkins 1965; restored, DAW 1977) Later novels

Fortress of the Pearl (novel, Gollancz 1989)
Revenge of the Rose (novel, Grafton 1991 as The Revenge of the Rose: A Tale of the Albino Prince in the Years of his Wandering)Look for this:

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/7c/e7/5a68024128a03a62905be010._AA24 0_.L.jpg

As well as part 2. These are hardback book club editions that you can pick up for cheap.

monolith94
12-07-2007, 07:37 PM
Anyone read any of these?

"Foundation and Empire" - Isaac Asimov
"2010: Odyssey Two" by Arthur C. Clarke
"3001: The Final Odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke
"Rendezvous With Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke
"Ringworld" by Larry Niven


I remember liking them all, but this was back in middle school mind you.

monolith94
12-07-2007, 07:40 PM
Ringworld and Foundation are probably the best of that bunch, though.

D_Davis
12-12-2007, 11:23 PM
I started Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke, this morning. It's okay so far, 20 pages in.

D_Davis
12-14-2007, 02:24 PM
So, I am a little more than half way through my first Arthur C. Clarke novel, Childhood's End, and it is pretty good. There have been a few remarkable moments sprinkled throughout the first 110 pages, and only a scant few mediocre ones. At its core, it is a basic alien invasion novel, prototypical even; this is a very influential book and has been an inspiration for countless other novels and movies. Clarke succeeds when he details humanity's longing for answers and their road to discovery, he fails when he tries to construct a logical idea of Utopia and dive deeper into human relationships. I've never really liked Utopian stories (and this is not purely a story about Utopia, as we learn), because they never really make any sense to me. The world that Clarke describes sounds boring, not Utopian, and honestly, I don't think humanity could be coaxed into living like this. There are parts of the book with far too much exposition, but these are balanced out by some truly amazing moments.

It's strange though, almost all of the recent books I've read have been divided into 3 distinct sections. A Canticle for Leibowitz, More Than Human, A Case for Conscience, The Gods Themselves, and now this are all comprised of 3 interconnected novellas, or parts that could be read as novellas. I find this structure interesting.

SpaceOddity
12-14-2007, 03:20 PM
So, I am a little more than half way through my first Arthur C. Clarke novel, Childhood's End, and it is pretty good. There have been a few remarkable moments sprinkled throughout the first 110 pages, and only a scant few mediocre ones. At its core, it is a basic alien invasion novel, prototypical even; this is a very influential book and has been an inspiration for countless other novels and movies. Clarke succeeds when he details humanity's longing for answers and their road to discovery, he fails when he tries to construct a logical idea of Utopia and dive deeper into human relationships. I've never really liked Utopian stories (and this is not purely a story about Utopia, as we learn), because they never really make any sense to me. The world that Clarke describes sounds boring, not Utopian, and honestly, I don't think humanity could be coaxed into living like this. There are parts of the book with far too much exposition, but these are balanced out by some truly amazing moments.
.

Do you know the storyline?

D_Davis
12-14-2007, 03:46 PM
Do you know the storyline?

Do you mean, do I know how this will all end up?

Not really, but I have an idea. I think it is clear to assume that the Overlords are not all they are cracked up to be! ;)

I love the part where the humans first meet the Overlords in "person." This part is very cool.

D_Davis
12-16-2007, 08:47 PM
Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, is a prototypical alien invasion story. It is safe to assume that just about every book or movie featuring such a scenario made after Clarke's Hugo award winning novel owes some deal of debt to it. Humongous spaceships appear in the skies over the Earth's major cities, and throughout the course of many generations, the seemingly benevolent alien Overlords solve all of humankind's problems. They create a so-called “Utopia,” in which crime, hunger, homelessness, and other undesirable things vanish completely. But at what cost? For every good thing that the Overlords give to mankind, for every problem they help to solve, what are they taking away? And why won't they let us explore the heavens? Why have they declared that “the stars are not for man?” What are the Overlords hiding from the people of Earth?

Clarke's book is, for the most part, an enjoyable read. There are many remarkable moments peppered throughout the short, two-hundred page volume. The book possesses more than a handful of sequences that are truly gripping: I recall a few times when I simply could not read fast enough to discover the outcome to a particularly suspenseful situation. However, also sprinkled throughout are a few passages of highly questionable quality. It is quite strange, really. Taken as a whole, the book is well written, engaging, thought provoking, and endearing. But, during some of the long-winded execution, in which there is too much “telling” and not enough “showing,” Clarke lapses into territory that can only be called amateur, and makes some baffling continuity errors.

Most of these ill-conceived passages occur when Clarke is describing the Utopian society mankind enjoys, one that doesn't sound all that appealing to me. We do not get to experience the Utopia, but, rather, it is simply and drably detailed in an unengaging manner. Sure, some of the ideas are neat, but how did the Overlords orchestrate their master plan? I get the impression that Clarke didn't really know how or why, either, and so he just came up with the final outcome; these passages feel empty because they skip past the most interesting aspects of the notions. Clarke does not reveal the subtle societal changes through the actions of his characters, but rather he just comes out and tells us that religion no longer exists, or that mankind has grown lazy and no longer creates stuff, or that scientific discover has been halted. He also seems to contradict himself from time to time. During one passage, he tells of how mankind has grown apathetic towards the arts, and has lost its creative edge because of the over abundance of entertainment and television. But, then, who is creating the entertainment and the programming the people are spending all of their time watching?

These moments are rare, but they are baffling enough to stand out because the majority of the stuff surrounding these missteps is interesting and entertaining. Like most of the books I've been reading lately, Childhood's End is divided into three distinct parts. The first part focuses on the initial “invasion” and the discovery of mankind's chosen emissary, Rikki Stormgren. Stromgren is the only human to which the Overlords directly speak, and he finds himself in a no win situation being pitted between a group of human malcontents and the plans of the Earth's new rulers. The second portion of the book introduces the ideas of Utopia and a surprising paranormal twist. It begins with the aliens finally revealing themselves to their human subjects, and this part is incredibly awesome. I won't spoil what the Overlords look like, but rest assured Clarke delivers an interesting glimpse into human-born mythology, psychology and religion.

The final third of the book takes a detailed look at a colony of outsiders whose goal it is to preserve the arts, and eventually reveals the Overlords' end game. Here, the book takes a remarkable turn, and ends up going in a direction that I never expected. During the final pages of Clarke's book, I was constantly being reminded of Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human, and I'll simply leave it at that. The last few closing chapters are quite powerful and poetically written, and I couldn't help but feel a little wistful about all of things that had come to fruition. This is clearly an example of powerful science fiction, and I will remember the closing moments for some time to come.

While the book is far from perfect, it still comes highly recommended. It covers a ton of ground, spanning hundreds of years, and offers up some wildly imaginative plot points in its engaging narrative. It's just too bad that much of the exposition is simplistically told rather than shown, as the effects of the societal changes are rarely discussed in terms of individual impact. I would have preferred a heavier does of characterization to accompany the lofty ideas, but I do realize that these problems, as they are, are due more to the style of this classic era of science fiction than they are to Clarke's abilities as an author. Childhood's End feels more like a collection of short stories than it does an epic narrative, but this is, by no means, a warning to stay clear, because when it is all said and done, Clarke's classic deserves all of the praise it has been given.

monolith94
12-16-2007, 09:23 PM
I hated Childhood's End when I first read it. Not only was the story bland, but I disagreed with each and every ideological point that Clarke made. Humbug.

D_Davis
12-17-2007, 12:14 AM
I hated Childhood's End when I first read it. Not only was the story bland, but I disagreed with each and every ideological point that Clarke made. Humbug.

It has its problems, and I too disagreed with a lot of Clarke's ideologies, or at least with the ways in which his characters arrived at their place under the Overlords' reign. Most of these problems pop up in the second part during the exposition of the "Utopia," and most of the things I dislike about this are the same things that I dislike about all stories in which a utopia is described. They just seem so boring and dystopian to me, and I cannot imagine mankind being led so easily down this path.

However, the first and third parts are quite good, especially the end of each. They are so good that they helped to override the problems of the second part.

Qrazy
12-17-2007, 11:17 AM
Anyone read Greg Bear's Eon? I quite like it, not a masterpiece or anything but some very interesting ideas. The sequel wasn't as good.

Qrazy
12-17-2007, 11:20 AM
I've said it before and I'll say it again: you, sir, are a superstar. Seriously, how do you manage to do this stuff while completing a degree? Are you older than I think?

Seriously, in comparison to lovejuice I'm just wasting my life away.

D_Davis
12-17-2007, 12:56 PM
Anyone read Greg Bear's Eon? I quite like it, not a masterpiece or anything but some very interesting ideas. The sequel wasn't as good.


I started it a few years ago but couldn't get into it. I do want to read it someday though.

D_Davis
12-18-2007, 02:27 AM
I recently picked up a book by Moorcock called Wizardry and Wild Romance: A Study of Epic Fantasy. It is a 200 page essay parsing through the conventions and tropes of high and low fantasy. I don't know when I'll get around to reading it, but it sounds fascinating.

D_Davis
12-18-2007, 02:34 AM
Two nights ago, I started The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman. It was written in response to the author's experiences in the Vietnam war, and it is often compared to Starship Troopers, although thematically it is already quite different. I am not a huge fan of military sci-fi, but from what I have heard this book goes beyond the warfare and ends up dealing with the societal changes associated with intergalactic war and the effects of light speed travel.

I am over half way through, and it is really good. The ideas it explores concerning the effects of relativity, hyperspace, and light speed travel on the theatre of battle is interesting. For instance, the humans and the alien enemy are constantly warping around through stargates and are having to deal with the effects of being ahead and behind each other in terms of technology and the strategies they employ. For instance, sometimes, due to the way a warp works, the humans may be from the future, and so they have the upper hand in battle, but the opposite is also true of the aliens. Depending on where the battle takes place, and how many warpgates the humans or the aliens have to travel through to get their totally impacts the technology and the strategies being used. I've never read or seen this side of warp-travel explored before, and it is very fascinating.

D_Davis
12-18-2007, 03:57 AM
Just got back from Half Price Books, with:

Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation
Ender's Game - yes, I will finally be a part of the cult of Ender's. It seems like a week doesn't go by in which I don't see someone reading this book. It's like Dianetics in the 1950s. Judging on the uber-popularity of this book, it better be one of the best things I've ever read in my life.
Sturgeon is Still Alive... - Short stories by Theodore Sturgeon
The New Hugo Winners V.2 - Edited by Asimov

All for $20! Not bad, not bad at all.

lovejuice
12-18-2007, 05:37 AM
so i think i'll read i, robot. since i really love the movie, and wanna see how it stands compared to the source material

Qrazy
12-18-2007, 05:54 AM
so i think i'll read i, robot. since i really love the movie, and wanna see how it stands compared to the source material

They have similar names... that's about it.

D_Davis
12-18-2007, 01:20 PM
so i think i'll read i, robot. since i really love the movie, and wanna see how it stands compared to the source material

You might also want to read Harlen Ellison's script, it is available in a nice book form. It is really good.

Melville
12-18-2007, 08:47 PM
so i think i'll read i, robot. since i really love the movie
?

What force on Earth could compel you to love such a thing?

D_Davis
12-18-2007, 09:43 PM
?

What force on Earth could compel you to love such a thing?

He and I have been defending this film quite a bit lately. I like it because it perfectly captures the tone of classic, golden era science fiction. The film possesses a pulpy-adventure story wrapped around a bit of societal exploration. It is also a well made film technically speaking. I rented it with little expectation, and walked away enjoying it quite a bit.

Sure, I'd rather see the Ellison script filmed, who wouldn't, but Proyas' film is quite good and is unjustifiably vilified.

Melville
12-18-2007, 11:52 PM
He and I have been defending this film quite a bit lately. I like it because it perfectly captures the tone of classic, golden era science fiction. The film possesses a pulpy-adventure story wrapped around a bit of societal exploration. It is also a well made film technically speaking. I rented it with little expectation, and walked away enjoying it quite a bit.
Hm.. I saw it in the theater with little expectation, and I still managed to walk away disappointed. I guess things like robot-Jesus do have that over-the-top pulpy spirit of playing wildly with big archetypal ideas. But, yeesh, did I ever find the movie (and Will Smith's shtick) irritating. And I just couldn't tolerate the giant computer saying that its logic was undeniable when it was explicitly contradicting itself.

Qrazy
12-19-2007, 01:49 AM
Hm.. I saw it in the theater with little expectation, and I still managed to walk away disappointed. I guess things like robot-Jesus do have that over-the-top pulpy spirit of playing wildly with big archetypal ideas. But, yeesh, did I ever find the movie (and Will Smith's shtick) irritating. And I just couldn't tolerate the giant computer saying that its logic was undeniable when it was explicitly contradicting itself.

Computers are only as logical as the psychotic madmen that program them.

Turns out it was the guy at the beginning's fault all along!

D_Davis
12-19-2007, 04:00 AM
The Forever War - Joe Haldeman

I am not the biggest fan of military science fiction. I've read some Niven, some Drake, Starship Troopers, and some of the old Battletech books published by FASA. I am just not interested in flanking, platoons, chain of command, tactics, military strategy, detailed descriptions of body armor and high tech weaponry, or reading about large scale space wars. Often times, I find that these qualities are written in lieu of strong characterizations and authentic human drama. What I do care about is when an author examines the personal and societal impact of space-age warfare, and Joe Haldeman does exactly this in The Forever War, a book written in direct response to his time served in the Vietnam War.

The Forever War follows the military service, in a time of forced participation, of William Mandella; his time at war, his time in hyperspace travel, his time at home, and his time living in the shit are all explored. It is through this fascinating character's eyes that we experience the absolute absurdity of futuristic warfare. The lengths that the humans go through to fight an enigmatic enemy are astoundingly stupid. Okay, maybe not stupid - their strategy and tactics are sound, and the military runs like a well oiled cyborg - but incredibly frustrating. That they would spend so much time (light year's worth) and money chasing an alien race around the universe just to stop it from possibly attacking the Earth is a mind boggling proposition, and in light of how much time and money we spend on Earth, today, stopping supposed threats, it is also frighteningly plausible. The “war on terror” is only slightly less inane than the war on the aliens detailed here.

At the core of this well-written narrative lies an interesting idea: the problem of time displacement and the relative effects of light speed travel. This idea is what makes the book such a fascinating science fiction story. If this idea were to be removed, the real impact of the narrative would be all but lost. We all know that when the veterans of the Vietnam war returned home, they returned to a county that had undergone drastic societal changes, changes that occurred in less than a decade, and they had problems adjusting to it all. What would happen if the tours of duty lasted longer, much longer, like say hundreds or thousands of years? What kind of Earth would these soldiers return to? The Forever War asks this very question, and the answers it poses are, not surprisingly, grim.

Because of time displacement, hyperspace travel effects the relative time of those on board the space cruisers differently than it does those on space stations or planets - time becomes subjective. For instance, a quick jump through a series of stargates might only take the soldiers a few months, where as decades, or longer, might pass elsewhere. However, this also poses an interesting problem concerning the war itself. Because the fighting takes place across the furthest reaches of the universe, the humans and the aliens are constantly jumping back and forth between different stargates and different subjective times. Sometimes, the humans appear to come from the aliens' future, while other times the humans appear to come from the aliens' past, and vice-versa. This reeks havoc on the relative effectiveness of different military tactics and technologies.

The biggest impact associated with time displacement is seen through Mandella's point of view. Through all the jarring changes he endures, it is surprising that the dude doesn't off himself. He goes from being a Private, a grunt, leaving a world familiar to him, a world he calls home, to being a Major, and a total social outcast. While he is away, jumping from one stargate to the next, mankind undergoes cataclysmic changes, changes that impact morality, society, sexual practices, and individual freedom on an extraordinary level, at least relative to his frame of reference. When he returns to Earth under the empty-promises of civilian life, he barely recognizes the place, and once back in space, hundreds of years later, he barely recognizes humanity at all. Mandella is caught in a kind of personal stasis field, in which all he can do is hope to understand a fraction of what he experiences while everything around him changes at a mind numbing speed.

Unfortunately, the book does suffer from some anachronistic problems. The war in space begins in 2007 (Haldeman did this so he could include characters that actually served in Vietnam), and so it is best to look at this as an alternate universe. However, in no way, shape, or form do these anachronisms take anything away from what Haldeman has to say. Even taken as a simple allegory for the present political climate, The Forever War is insightful and powerful, but as an extrapolation of what might come in the distant future, it becomes a humongous, glowing and flashing warning sign. It is a cautionary tale of great magnitude, and like all memorable and well written science fiction, Haldeman asks us to learn from the past, examine the present, and make the necessary changes for the future, lest we end up sending our finest men and woman light years into outer space chasing boogie men for only God knows what.

megladon8
12-25-2007, 02:15 PM
Got two Philip K. Dick novels for Christmas - "Humpty Dumpty in Oakland" and "The Crack in Space".

D_Davis
12-28-2007, 01:42 AM
Got two Philip K. Dick novels for Christmas - "Humpty Dumpty in Oakland" and "The Crack in Space".

Cool. I've never read any of his mainstream fiction (Humpty...), and it is nice to see that it is finally getting published, even though I hear it is mostly rubbish.

I just finished Dick's Clans of the Alphane Moon, and will have a review written in a few days. Totally absurd, entertaining, and enjoyable.

I just started, Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny. So far, it is okay. The prose is a bit too flowery, but I hear that it really opens up to something great starting with chapter 2.

D_Davis
12-29-2007, 03:09 AM
I ended up giving up on Lord of Light. I read about 100 pages and it never caught my attention. It just seemed to be going nowhere. That's two clunkers in a row now, this, and Nova by Delany. Hopefully, The Lathe of Heaven will be a better read.

megladon8
12-29-2007, 04:18 AM
Have you read any of Steven Erikson's books in the "Malazen Book of the Fallen" series? My boss has recommended them to me many times.

D_Davis
01-01-2008, 05:23 PM
Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964) - Philip K. Dick

Recall, if you will, the late 1970s, a time when Ronald Reagan was the Governor of California. Reagan, in an effort to cut taxes, ends be damned, systematically began closing the state's mental hospitals, thus expelling the patients - the mentally ill and handicapped, the troubled, and the dangerous - onto the streets of California's cities. Now, imagine if these sick people - some psychotic, some simply on a never ending trip to La-La Land - moved to some distant island, and began to live with one another in a sort of clan-driven, makeshift society governed by a congress of men and woman with broken psyches. If this is an idea that sounds interesting to you, you may want to turn to Philip K. Dick's novel, Clans of the Alphane Moon.

While it was written in 1964 (Dick's most prolific novel-writing year), it perfectly extrapolates upon the fictitious scenario presented above, and then, in accordance with Dick's style, it piles on the absurd, the tragic, and the humorous, and ends with an explosion of twisted ideas, wild action, and a subtle examination of humanity's mental facilities. Mental health issues have always been an important subject in the realm of science fiction, and to Dick these notions were the benefactors of an attention almost undivided. Dick spent a large portion of his career examining, dissecting, and pouring over characters and situations governed by questionable and deteriorating mental health. His stories often question the authenticity of human emotion, of human thought, and of human behavior, usually amidst a backdrop of some wild and delusional cosmic happening.

With Clans of the Alphane Moon, Dick eschews allegory and metaphor, and approaches the subject with a literal mind. His psychotic and troubled characters are not disguised or hidden behind a clever and mysterious veil; Dick presents everything out in the open. Five major psychosis are represented within these pages. The Heebs suffer from hebephrenia, the Pares suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, the Deps from clinical depression, the Manses are manics, and the Skitzes suffer from good old fashioned schizophrenia. Each of these groups lives in a separate commune, and they rarely have interaction with one another. However, each group has a chosen emissary, who, when a crises presents itself, convene together in a semi-orderly fashion to solve the mutual problem. This itself poses an interesting question about their so-called “mental disorders;” if they can live together in a semi-functioning society, are they really so disturbed?

In typical Phildickian fashion, the above description only covers the small tip of a very large ice berg. As dickheads will attest, good old Phil loved to pile on the ideas, plots, sub-plots, and characters, sometimes to the detriment of his narratives. While the hodgepodge of stuff doesn't necessarily hinder this particular story, it does feel as if Dick was coasting just a bit. There are simply a ton of ideas presented in Clans, more ideas than some authors attempt to tackle in as many books, but none of them feel fully explored. The “main” story arc follows the failing marriage of Chuck and Marry Rittersdorf. Chuck is a CIA operative who programs and writes scripts for the government's simulacra. He is also encouraged, by a sentient slime mold named Lord Running Clam and a girl who can reverse time for up to five minutes, to become a screenwriter for Bunny Hentman, an uber-famous television personality. Marry Rittersdorf is a marriage counselor and psychiatrist who is sent to the Alphane moon to gather information for a future military strike.

So we've got issues dealing with divorce, the media, androids, aliens, and covert military operations, all set against a backdrop teeming with questionable realities and extreme mental health issues; all in less than 250 pages! I didn't even mention the crazy sci-fi, laser-and-tank-infused action, or the theological twist Dick throws in as well. Phew, it's no wonder that a few of these ideas and characters are less than fully fleshed out. While it delivers on its premise more than Solar Lottery or Maze of Death, things don't quite come together as good as they do in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch or Martian Time Slip. It's a shame, too, because this really is a fun read, and it would have been simply amazing had Dick spent a little more time with the characters and the central concepts. The writing is solid, the ideas are fascinating, the narrative is peppered with humor and action, and it is incredibly entertaining. Clans of the Alphane Moon is a solid B-level Philip K. Dick book, and, like I've said before, B-level Dick is better than the best from a lot of other genre authors.

monolith94
01-03-2008, 12:19 AM
Yeah, that's the key to "Clans" - entertaining. I've read other books by Dick since "Clans", but I'm not sure if any of them have reached that popcorn-level of sheer fun. Lord Running Clam is definitely one of my favorite characters.

D_Davis
01-03-2008, 12:44 AM
Yeah, that's the key to "Clans" - entertaining. I've read other books by Dick since "Clans", but I'm not sure if any of them have reached that popcorn-level of sheer fun. Lord Running Clam is definitely one of my favorite characters.

Vulcan's Hammer is also a total hoot - pure pulp, and pure entertainment.

Lord Running Clam does indeed rule.

monolith94
01-03-2008, 12:55 AM
I'll have to check that one out then.

D_Davis
01-03-2008, 03:35 AM
I'll have to check that one out then.

It's part 2001, part Dr. Strangelove, and part Terminator. It reminds me a lot of the Stainless Steel Rat books by Harrison. A rip-roaring, sci-fi action adventure.

D_Davis
01-03-2008, 03:38 PM
I finished Le Guin's, The Lathe of Heaven, and I loved it. The first thing written by her that I truly liked, let alone loved. It is fantastic. Full review coming soon!

I then started Harry Harrison's Deathworld trilogy. It is awesome. It is basically a pallet swap with the Stainless Steel Rat books, but this is pretty much exactly what I wanted. Even the main characters have similar names:

Jim diGriz - Stainless Steel Rat
Jason dinAlt - Deathworld

Deathworld I is basically about a planet on which something is causing the fauna, animals, and climate to rapidly evolve for one purpose: to totally, painfully, and quickly destroy mankind.

The human inhabitants of this world only worry about one thing: survival. From the age of 5, they are medically enhanced with a special kind of gun that shoots rocket propelled explosives. The gun is attached to the forearm, and by simply willing it, the gun is unholstered to the hand. There are no trigger guards in place, and so the gun reaches the waiting hand already firing.

It's pretty dang awesome. Harrison's unique brand of low brow, space-opera, action/adventure, is something I really dig. These books are short, all three come in at around 400 pages, total, and they read like kick-ass action movies.

I am still totally shocked that no one has ever made movies based on the Stainless Steel Rat books. They would be absolutely perfect for the medium.

D_Davis
01-04-2008, 03:23 AM
The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula K. Le Guin

I've never been a huge fan of Ursula K. Le Guin. Now, granted, I've only read a handful of short stories (all dealing with her fictional race of asexual beings), and I have started but failed to crack a few of her novels. I really want to like her, and with all the praise she gets, I think I should like her. I don't think authors are this highly regarded, both with critics and with readers, for no good reason. I recently told a friend of mine that I was going to read a Le Guin book, and he said, disparagingly, “enjoy the infodump.” I thought this was a pretty good description of Le Guin's style. I often feel as if she is preaching to me from atop some ivory, gender-issue-tinted tower, and that as a straight, white male I just wasn't meant to get the cut of her jib. I sometimes feel as if she should be writing sociology textbooks for alien cultures rather than narrative based fiction (well, I guess she kind of does do that...).

And so it was with some trepidation that I recently purchased The Lathe of Heaven. It is a short book, and so I figured that even if I didn't enjoy it, it would be over soon enough - that's me, an optimist to the end. Holy crap was I ever wrong. This book blew my freaking mind. It is incomprehensibly good, and even though there are moments in which Le Guin piles on the exposition and the INFORMATION, often dealing with dream-psychology, the narrative is tightly focused and features a few central characters that shine with nuanced emotions and motives. I couldn't read this fast enough; I wanted to devour the plot presented on each and every page as quickly, but as carefully, as possible. Like a well written poem, each phrase and passage of this short novel is precisely written, and each word is chosen for its most effective usage.

Le Guin's book pulses with a pounding rhythm, it is a tensely paced novel full of plot and ideas; it glances at notions that other books would base their entire premise around. It focuses on two central characters, George Orr (an allusion to George Orwell, perhaps?) and Dr. Haber. Orr has a peculiar problem, namely, his “effective dreaming.” He is able to create reality and shift the space time continuum by dreaming. Orr does not want this power, and wants to escape the responsibility of changing things that impact everything and everyone around him. After being caught using other peoples' pharmacy cards to get drugs (drugs to stop him from dreaming), he is sentenced to “voluntary” therapy, and finds himself under the watchful gaze of Dr. Haber. Dr. Haber is a kind and boisterous man, blinded by misplaced ambition, and soon discovers that Orr's problem is very real and incredibly powerful. Through a series of sessions assisted by the Augmenter, a device Haber invents to guide Orr into prolonged effective dreaming, the two men find themselves entangled in a battle of wits involving a rapidly evolving universe, an alien invasion, an interstellar war, and Armageddon.

The most lavish praise I can thrust upon this tome is that it reminds of a Philip K. Dick story. Now, these kinds of comparisons are often dangerous, because some might argue that by not celebrating Le Guin's own unique voice that I am, in fact, disparaging her writing. But this is not true. As most of you know, I am a huge dickhead; I've read more, and liked more, by good old Phil than any other author. The Lathe of Heaven could easily be placed, side by side, with Dick's best, namely Martian Time Slip, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Flow My Tears, The Police Man Said. It reminds of Dick, but this is not to say that I enjoyed it because Le Guin was somehow channeling my favorite author. I know that the two authors were quite close, and Le Guin helped Phil a great deal later in his life, and I wouldn't be surprised if she wrote this with her friend and colleague in mind. It reminded me of Dick's work simply because I enjoyed it almost as much.

My Le Guin shell has now been broken, and I feel as though I am prepared to embrace more of her work. It is hard for me to put into words just how much I loved The Lathe of Heaven. Every page was a joy to read, and every new reveal, plot point, and character decision was composed with a master's eye for detail. It's as if Le Guin left all the boring parts out, and decided, smartly, to only focuses on the stuff that really mattered to the characters and the narrative. I appreciate this aspect about well written older science fiction. Short, concise, to the point, and not belabored with overwrought exposition. This book reads like a dream, it effortlessly flows from one point to the next, and contains a world built upon in its own logic, a logic that totally works within the printed page. I can easily imagine these characters living on, in some parallel universe, and I only wish I was able to visit their world now, to see how it has changed.

megladon8
01-04-2008, 04:04 AM
I'd never even heard of that book, D. The one book I've read by Le Guin is called "The Word for the World is Forest", and it had some interesting ideas but was a little preachy.

You review has me interested, though. I like when you say that every word in every sentence is meticulously chosen - I like writing like that. There's a time and a place for "flowery language", but I usually prefer more precise prose.

D_Davis
01-04-2008, 04:10 AM
I'd never even heard of that book, D. The one book I've read by Le Guin is called "The Word for the World is Forest", and it had some interesting ideas but was a little preachy.

You review has me interested, though. I like when you say that every word in every sentence is meticulously chosen - I like writing like that. There's a time and a place for "flowery language", but I usually prefer more precise prose.


Trust me, as an adamant Le Guin detractor, I can safely say that this book is the shit. It blew my freaking mind.

I also think you will really enjoy her writing here. It is wonderful.

D_Davis
01-04-2008, 02:02 PM
Deathworld I - Harry Harrison

A short and concise novel deserves a short and concise review, so here it goes. Deathworld, the first book of the, wait for it, Deathworld trilogy, written by Harry Harrison, is basically a pallet swap with The Stainless Steel Rat books. And this is exactly what I wanted from it. Harrison's unique voice does wonders to create these kinds of low brow, pulpy, space-opera, high flying, action adventure yarns. And that's exactly Deathworld is. Like the film The Road Warrior, Deathworld is a reduction of genre conventions. It contains only the barest of essential elements needed to tell its story. It is relentlessly paced, populated with characters there only to serve the plot, and delivers an almost non-stop series of cliffhangers, thrills, spills, and chills.

The main character's name is Jason dinAlt, not to be confused with “Slippery” Jim diGriz, a.k.a. The Stainless Steel Rat. Mr. dinAlt is a gambler, a rogue, a handsome, smooth-talking devil, a ladies man, a hero, a fighter, a lover, and he possesses psionic abilities. Basically, he's freaking awesome. He's Han Solo meets James Bond meets Jason Bourne meets a telekinetic James Randi. I'd be surprised is George Lucas didn't base the Han Solo character after some of Harrison's own creations. The book tells of his adventures of the planet Pyrrus, one of the most dangerous planets in the universe (there are three most dangerous planets, hence the Deathworld trilogy).

It seems as though Pyrrus exists and has evolved, and continues to rapidly evolve, for one purpose only: to obliterate mankind as painfully as possible. The weather on Pyrrus is devastating; one minute it will be pouring rain, the next minute your soggy clothes will be steaming and drying in the blazing heat. Volcanoes erupt without notice, earthquakes tear the land apart, the fauna is ladened with skin searing acid and poison, and the wild life is twice as deadly. On top of all of this, there seems to be some kind of psionic radiation urging and pushing everything on the planet to wipe out anything that gets in its way. Also living on this planet are a group of colonists who live for one thing alone: survival. From the ages of five they are trained to fight. They have special guns surgically attached to their arms, and they are made into killing machines. Why are they there? Well, the planet is simply overflowing with highly desirable heavy metals. It is a treasure trove of trade and potential wealth. Sounds like the perfect place for Jason dinAlt, a place where he can totally test his skills.

Harry Harrison knows how to write these kinds of stories, and he writes them well. While the prose is only serviceable, we're not talking poetry here, nor will find any flowery descriptions, it is simply perfect for the job at hand. Like the characters with which he populates his worlds, Harrison moves fast, thinks on his feet, and just lets it rip. Yes, there are far too many coincidences, and like some space-aged MacGyver, Jason also seems to have exactly what he needs. Yes, the situations are outlandish, and pretty silly. And yes, I enjoyed it immensely. For my money, popcorn sci-fi doesn't get any better than a great Harrison potboiler. Deathworld is intense, suspenseful, full of action and heroic deeds, and is a total blast from start to finish.

megladon8
01-06-2008, 01:25 AM
D_Davis, I was wondering if you could give me some guidance on where to move onto next with Philip K. Dick?

My first (and only) experience with him was "Galactic Pot-Healer".

Any suggestions? Books I simply cannot miss by him?

D_Davis
01-06-2008, 01:30 AM
D_Davis, I was wondering if you could give me some guidance on where to move onto next with Philip K. Dick?

My first (and only) experience with him was "Galactic Pot-Healer".

Any suggestions? Books I simply cannot miss by him?

From another thread:

1. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - this book encapsulates the best of PKD's sci-fi coupled with his most groundbreaking and gonzo theological ramblings. There are so many amazing ideas packed into this volume that it is impossible to digest them after only one read. This is a book that rewards careful re-reading. It also contains some of his best prose. PKD's prose was kind of hit or miss, but here it is spot on. The quote in the thread title is from this book.

2. VALIS - simply because this is what PKD was all about. Much of the book is autobiographical in nature, and the rest of it is simply too creative to dismiss as anything but the brilliant work of a mad genius.

From my review:

VALIS is truly a fascinating novel, and may be one of the most “meta” novels ever written. The novel, written by Philip K. Dick, is about Philip K. Dick, only in the narrative his name is Horselover Fat (Philip means “caretaker of horses” in Hebrew, and Dick, in shortened German form, means “fat”). So, in the book we have PKD, the author, writing about his own life as a character, named Horselover Fat, in order to put some distance between himself and the events that transpire during the narrative. Fat, however, is losing touch with reality, or perhaps reality doesn’t really exist at all. Fat is in contact with God (VALIS, or ZEBRA), and suddenly learns a great deal about the universe. He also discovers that he is actually two people sharing the same body, although in two vastly different space-time continuums. Fat is living in California in 1974, and this other person, Thomas, a secret Christian trying to bring forth the downfall of the Roman Empire, is living in Rome circa 100 C.E. (A.D.).

3. The Transmigration of Timothy Archer - Dick's only "mainstream" novel to be published in his lifetime. It closes the VALIS "trilogy" but eschews all of the "sci-fi-ness" associated with VALIS. It is a very heartfelt and sad book, and also the only book of his to feature a positive female POV character. It is said that Dick knew he was going to die after writing this, and in many ways the writing is on the wall. It is a very serious book. By this time in PKD's career, he was basically running on empty. He finished most of his later novels in one or two sittings, and claimed that he wasn't even the one writing them. PKD would check out, something else would take over, and 3 days later a novel would be finished. That is not to say the quality suffers though, far from it. Timothy Archer is a fascinating novel, and PKD's most straightforward examination of humanity and religion.


and...


4. Martian Time Slip
5. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
6. Time Out of Joint
7. A Scanner Darkly
8. Man in the High Castle
9. The Divine Invasion
10. UBIK

megladon8
01-06-2008, 01:37 AM
Wonderful, thank you. I saved that post.

For "The Three Stigmata..." does this require other reading prior to attempting this read, will I be OK having only read one other book by PKD?

D_Davis
01-06-2008, 01:45 AM
Wonderful, thank you. I saved that post.

For "The Three Stigmata..." does this require other reading prior to attempting this read, will I be OK having only read one other book by PKD?

I would probably save the VALIS trilogy for reading until you have read some more.

The Three Stigmata... is one you could read at any time. It is amazing.

megladon8
01-06-2008, 01:46 AM
I would probably save the VALIS trilogy for reading until you have read some more.

The Three Stigmata... is one you could read at any time. It is amazing.


Awesome, thank you. I appreciate it :)

D_Davis
01-06-2008, 02:00 AM
So I should be wrapping up Philip Jose Farmer's To You Scattered Bodies Go tonight. It is pretty good. He takes historical figures like Alice Hargreaves (the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland) and Sir Richard Francis Burton (an English explorer, translator, scholar, writer and so on - he once disguised himself as a Muslim and made the journey to Mecca) and mixes them up with an alien, and a Neanderthal, and then sends them a a journey up a great river to discover the source of their resurrection. Pretty fascinating. It's speculative, historical fiction mixed with a journey of intense discover set against a backdrop of science fiction.

megladon8
01-06-2008, 02:01 AM
Hmmm...speaking of speculative/altered historical fiction, have you ever read anything by Harry Turtledove?

D_Davis
01-06-2008, 02:03 AM
Hmmm...speaking of speculative/altered historical fiction, have you ever read anything by Harry Turtledove?

I've tried, many years ago, but I just couldn't get into his stuff. I tried to start his Civil War series, but it kind of bored me.

megladon8
01-06-2008, 02:05 AM
I've tried, many years ago, but I just couldn't get into his stuff. I tried to start his Civil War series, but it kind of bored me.


Yes, pretty much everyone I know who likes his work is also deeply interested in war and the tactics used in historical battles, so I suppose his works attract a certain type of reader.

Just when you mentioned "speculative historical fiction", that's the name that came to mind right away.

Though I always thought his idea of injecting aliens into WWII was interesting.

D_Davis
01-06-2008, 02:10 AM
Yes, pretty much everyone I know who likes his work is also deeply interested in war and the tactics used in historical battles, so I suppose his works attract a certain type of reader.

Just when you mentioned "speculative historical fiction", that's the name that came to mind right away.

Though I always thought his idea of injecting aliens into WWII was interesting.

Almost everyone I've ever known who likes Turtledove also likes and reads a ton of books about war and history. I'm just not that interested. Like I said in my review for The Forever War, I just don't care about military tactics and all that stuff.

The only hardcore speculative fiction novel I've ever liked, and finished, is PKD's The Man in the High Castle, and it doesn't ever deal with the military.

D_Davis
01-06-2008, 02:11 AM
The Farmer book isn't really alternate history. He rips historical figures out of they own time, and plops them in the middle of fantastic situations. I guess you could call the Riverworld Saga, of which the above book is the first part of, anachronistic science fiction. "What if Mark Twain went to Mars," or something.

megladon8
01-06-2008, 02:11 AM
Almost everyone I've ever known who likes Turtledove also likes and reads a ton of books about war and history. I'm just not that interested. Like I said in my review for The Forever War, I just don't care about military tactics and all that stuff.

The only hardcore speculative fiction novel I've ever liked, and finished, is PKD's The Man in the High Castle, and it doesn't ever deal with the military.


The imagination PKD had is incredible.

Even having just read one of his books (and excerpts from several others), it's like nothing else ever written.

He was a genius.

D_Davis
01-06-2008, 02:17 AM
The imagination PKD had is incredible.

Even having just read one of his books (and excerpts from several others), it's like nothing else ever written.

He was a genius.

This is true. I often sit and think about being in his mind. It's not that his stuff is just strange either. He truly had a unique mind, the mind of a true genius. That he was able to come up with his ideas while also tying them to the world around him is incredible. He was also prolific as hell. Between 1963 and 1964, he wrote 11 novels. Holy shit. And many of these are good!

1963Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Bloodmoney%2C_or_How_We_Go t_Along_After_the_Bomb) (1965)The Game-Players of Titan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game-Players_of_Titan) (1963) (ISBN 0-679-74065-1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Bookso urces&isbn=0679740651))The Simulacra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simulacra) (1964)The Crack in Space (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crack_in_Space) (1966+)Now Wait for Last Year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_Wait_for_Last_Year) (1966)1964Clans of the Alphane Moon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clans_of_the_Alphane_Moon) (1964)The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Stigmata_of_Palmer_E ldritch) (1965)The Zap Gun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zap_Gun) (1967)The Penultimate Truth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Penultimate_Truth) (1964)Deus Irae (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_Irae) with Roger Zelazny (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Zelazny) (1976*+)The Unteleported Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unteleported_Man) (1966 / 1983+ / 1984*+ as Lies, Inc. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies%2C_Inc.))

(publishing date)

megladon8
01-06-2008, 02:19 AM
Yes, he has a massive library of work.

Takashi Miike should get to work adapting all of his books to film - he's probably the only filmmaker in the world who could do it all in one lifetime :)

monolith94
01-06-2008, 03:03 AM
Harry Turtledove is a very predictable author. I can guarantee you at least one sex scene of dubious importance in each of his novels. I really enjoyed his books when I read them in middle school, but I highly doubt I'd enjoy them now.

D_Davis
01-06-2008, 03:19 AM
Yes, he has a massive library of work.

Takashi Miike should get to work adapting all of his books to film - he's probably the only filmmaker in the world who could do it all in one lifetime :)

This would be very interesting. PKD's work filtered through the eyes of a different culture.

Stay Puft
01-06-2008, 03:59 AM
I need to read more Dick. My first was Do Androids Dream and I was so obsessed I read it three more times before even thinking about moving on to another. Last summer I read A Scanner Darkly, Man in the High Castle, and Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. Each is nothing short of invigorating, texts rich in ideas and narrative. I particularly enjoyed the way Dick played with reality and perception in Flow My Tears. The ending blew my mind so hard I couldn't think straight for weeks.

I have also only just started with Le Guin, having read The Left Hand of Darkness last year. I thought it was a sublime read.

(Okay, confession time: I've only recently developed an appreciation for science fiction, thanks in part largely to university courses. I am only "just starting" or "needing to read more" in general.)

D_Davis
01-06-2008, 04:15 AM
I need to read more Dick. My first was Do Androids Dream and I was so obsessed I read it three more times before even thinking about moving on to another. Last summer I read A Scanner Darkly, Man in the High Castle, and Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. Each is nothing short of invigorating, texts rich in ideas and narrative. I particularly enjoyed the way Dick played with reality and perception in Flow My Tears. The ending blew my mind so hard I couldn't think straight for weeks.

I have also only just started with Le Guin, having read The Left Hand of Darkness last year. I thought it was a sublime read.

(Okay, confession time: I've only recently developed an appreciation for science fiction, thanks in part largely to university courses. I am only "just starting" or "needing to read more" in general.)

Flow My Tears is, indeed, awesome. There's science fiction, and then there is Philip K. Dick.

My next Le Guin is going to be The Dispossessed, as it won a Hugo award, but I won't be getting to it for a while.

My "to possibly read next" shelf looks like this:

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang - Kate Wilhelm
The Wanderer - Fritz Lieber
Stand on Zanzibar - John Brunner
The Way Station - Clifford D. Simak
Double Star - Heinlein


You should work your way through the Hugo winners, starting with the first, and perhaps the best, The Demolished Man.

Make sure you read some Alfred Bester and Theodore Sturgeon.

D_Davis
01-06-2008, 03:30 PM
I started Heinlein's Double Star. It's about an out of work actor hired to impersonate an emissary to Mars. It one the Hugo in '55 or '56 I think. It is super short, under 150 pages.

megladon8
01-06-2008, 06:28 PM
I started reading "The Crack in Space" by PKD.

It's fantastic - I don't know why so many reviews are saying it's not very good.

The world is so overpopulated that a huge segment of the population has been cryogenically frozen, waiting for whenever more space is available. Then, a mechanic discovers a doorway to another world in one of the machines he is repairing. So, of course, people want to use this other parallel world as a second Earth.

There's a really funny scene near the beginning where one of the mechanics is recalling a story someone told him about when they found a similar portal in one of their machines. They looked in and saw tons of little people speaking a foreign language, and they began to converse with him. They asked him to answer some questions for him, and they gave him tablets to fill out his answers on. When he translated the questions and gave the tablets back to them with the answers, he found out they were speaking ancient Hebrew.

:)

Melville
01-06-2008, 08:51 PM
I started Heinlein's Double Star. It's about an out of work actor hired to impersonate an emissary to Mars. It one the Hugo in '55 or '56 I think. It is super short, under 150 pages.
Aha! Another book you're reading that I've actually read. I remember it being fairly entertaining, but generally pretty silly.

D_Davis
01-07-2008, 12:52 AM
Aha! Another book you're reading that I've actually read. I remember it being fairly entertaining, but generally pretty silly.

Yeah, it's totally silly. It reminds me of Team America, in that an actor is employed to save the day. Pretty funny. Reminds me a bit of The Stainless Steel Rat books as well - just pure, simple fun.

D_Davis
01-07-2008, 12:53 AM
I started reading "The Crack in Space" by PKD.

It's fantastic - I don't know why so many reviews are saying it's not very good.



Very cool. This is one that I haven't read yet. I think D.S. recently read this.

D_Davis
01-07-2008, 02:37 AM
To Your Scattered Bodies Go - Philip Jose Farmer

I've always wanted to read Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld books. I have heard nothing but great things about them, but I just never got around to actually reading any of them. And so yesterday, on a cold and rainy Saturday, I curled up on the couch and read my way through To Your Scattered Bodies Go. It was invigorating, and the perfect book to devour in a single sitting. It tells the story of an intense journey of discovery; it is full of action, tragedy, endearing characters, and a plethora of interesting ideas and situations.

One by one, millions of dead people, humans and aliens from a vast array of different eras, find themselves waking up, completely naked and hairless, scattered along the grassy bank of a vast river. This strange afterlife is unlike any detailed in any of the world's major religions. Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, and agnostics all must come to the realization that “heaven” exists, only it's completely different from what anyone ever imagined. This “heaven” quickly becomes a hotbed of debauchery and decadence; orgies, violence, rape, murder, war, slavery and torture become all too commonplace. It seems that, even when given a second chance, the “Lazuri,” are unable to live with one another in a peaceful and productive manner. What's more, some of the Lazuri learn that when they die in this world, they are resurrected again at a different point along the river. Some of the characters use this to their advantage, and embark on what comes to be known as “The Suicide Express” - dive into the river, take in a lung-full of water, and presto, randomly wake up somewhere else.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go can been read as a sort of historical-parallel-alternate-history story. Many of the characters are ripped out of a real life historical context and are thrust into this strange world. Taking center stage is the English explorer-translator-swordsman-fighter-author, Sir Richard Francis Burton. Once, Sir Burton disguised himself as a Muslim and made the journey to Mecca, thus, unofficially, becoming the first Caucasian Hadji. This historical anecdote is paralleled in the book as Sir Burton and his unusual crew of Lazuri make a boat, christened The Hajji, and travel up river to the of source of power, Riverworld's “Mecca.” Joining Sir Burton is Alice Hargreaves (the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland), a strange alien (a harbinger of mankind's doom, circa 2008), a Neanderthal, and a man named Steven Frigate, who, in life, was an admirer of Sir Burton's.

What I enjoyed most about Farmer's Hugo award winning book is how effortlessly the author blends old fashion pulp with the ideas of the new wave sci-fi movement. At times, the narrative conjures the voices of Robert E. Howard and E. E. “Doc” Smith. Lustful and voluptuous ladies abound, brutish barbarians and savages fight in bloody melees, and adventure reigns supreme upon the banks of the mysterious river. On the surface, the book is a rip-roaring action yarn full of daring-do and heroism, scalawags and usurpers, pitfalls and cliffhangers. However, Farmer also injects a ton of social and political context into his grand adventure. He examines ideas of racism, anarchy, diplomacy and democracy, and builds an interesting, if somewhat frustrating, speculative world made even more captivating because of the anachronistic characters.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go is comprised of the best of both worlds. It's got the ideas and social commentary of the new wave, and the pulpy adventure of the golden age. While it does sometimes suffer from some repetition, the heroes are captured and escape a bit too often, for the most part it is masterfully paced. I also appreciate how the journey ends. Narratives like this can often end on a sour note. Their endings are usually greatly anticipated, and many times the final destination does not compare to the sheer immensity of the journey. Such is not the case here. Farmer delivers a satisfactory ending, but he does not dwell on its importance. It does not disappoint because it is just another stop along the epic journey. The mystery is left open, and yet I don't feel as if I need to read any of the other Riverwold books. This is a very good thing in this modern world of massive door-stop sagas, and I thank Farmer for such a concise and compelling read.

megladon8
01-07-2008, 02:45 AM
That sounds fascinating. I love different interpretations of the afterlife.

So there are other books in this series? And they all take place along this river?

D_Davis
01-07-2008, 02:46 AM
That sounds fascinating. I love different interpretations of the afterlife.

So there are other books in this series? And they all take place along this river?

Yes. The next book is about Mark Twain, and then the third and fourth books combine the stories of Twain and Burton. Farmer also wrote a fifth book to the series, but I've heard it adds nothing, is best left unread.

megladon8
01-07-2008, 01:13 PM
I am freaking loving "The Crack in Space".

D_Davis
01-07-2008, 02:52 PM
I am freaking loving "The Crack in Space".

Awesome. This one is definitely on my short list.

megladon8
01-09-2008, 01:48 AM
So I thought "The Crack in Space" was pretty close to being absolutely perfect.

One of the best science fiction stories I've read.

Considering this is considered by many to be one of Dick's lesser works - and it is only my second Dick experience (HA!) - I am looking forward to getting my mind totally raped with further readings.

D_Davis
01-09-2008, 03:15 AM
So I thought "The Crack in Space" was pretty close to being absolutely perfect.

One of the best science fiction stories I've read.

Considering this is considered by many to be one of Dick's lesser works - and it is only my second Dick experience (HA!) - I am looking forward to getting my mind totally raped with further readings.


Awesome. I need to crack into this one.

I can't wait to hear what you have to say about Three Stigmata...

I actually want to reread this for a review, so let me know when you might get to it.

megladon8
01-09-2008, 03:24 AM
Awesome. I need to crack into this one.

I can't wait to hear what you have to say about Three Stigmata...

I actually want to reread this for a review, so let me know when you might get to it.


Cool, I shall do that.

I plan on writing a review for "The Crack in Space", so I'll post here and forward it to GB whenever I get it done :)


EDIT: And I've gotten my mom interested in Philip K. Dick! she's going to read "The Crack in Space" now.

D_Davis
01-09-2008, 03:42 AM
Sweet. My mom read The Divine Invasion and Time Out of Joint. She liked them. She liked Time better because it is more of a straight forward sci-fi tale, and she liked The Truman Show, which basically stole Dick's story.

monolith94
01-10-2008, 02:13 AM
I actually find The Divine Invasion to be somewhat straightforward... but perhaps it just seemed straightforward in comparison to VALIS. :D

It's still my favorite P.K.D. Perhaps because it's even more explicitly theological than Valis, and I found the struggle somehow more compelling than the neurotic strugglers and stragglers in Valis.

D_Davis
01-10-2008, 04:53 AM
I actually find The Divine Invasion to be somewhat straightforward... but perhaps it just seemed straightforward in comparison to VALIS. :D

It's still my favorite P.K.D. Perhaps because it's even more explicitly theological than Valis, and I found the struggle somehow more compelling than the neurotic strugglers and stragglers in Valis.

I need to read it again, but I remember really, really liking DI. Perhaps even more so than VALIS, partially because of its strong theological currents.

D_Davis
01-10-2008, 04:33 PM
Theodore Sturgeon on Science Fiction:

Q: What is your analysis of science fiction?

TS: I believe it is the wrong name for the field. It should have been called a number of other things - speculative fiction, for example. In many people's minds, science fiction is girls in brass brassieres about to be raped by a slimy monster, and being rescued by some guy fully dressed in a space suit with a zap gun. It is all in the future, all in space, it is all Star Wars and Buck Rogers.

Science fiction, outside of poetry, is the only literary field which has no limits, no parameters whatsoever. You can go not only into the future, but into that wonderful place called "other", which is simply another universe, another planet, another species.

It's things that happen inside your head. I've always said that there's more in inner space than in outer space. Inner space is so much more interesting, because outer space is so empty.

Q: Do you resent being classified as a science fiction writer?

TS: The reason I stayed in the science fiction field is that you can go anywhere with it. You just cannot do that in historical fiction, or costume drama or western or whatever because the lines are drawn so tightly. In science fiction, you can also test out your own realities. The world around you - is it a good thing or a bad thing? Create a world in which these things do or do not exist, or in which they are extended in some way. Test reality against this fiction. The reader will recognize the world that you're talking about, even though it may be another one altogether.

...

Q: How can you explain the eternalness of your writing? It never seems dated or concerned with trivial matters.
TS: You see, I have a secret formula. A secret, magic formula that many writers are always looking for. I have a pretty good hold on this one. I write a story as if it were a letter to someone and essentially, that's what you do. Writing is a communication. You don't sit up in a cave and write the Great American Novel and know it is utterly superb, and then throw it page by page into the fire. You just don't do that. You send it out. You have to send it out.
You must write to the people's expertise. In general, what are people expert at? Fear, love, loss, laughter and loneliness - above all, loneliness. You write a story about loneliness, and you grab them all because everybody's an expert on that one. Sometimes it's called alienation, but it's something more than that. It's loneliness, not being separate from the whole world. It's a seeking, a searching for somebody who'll understand you.
There are really only two parts to writing: what you say, and how you say it. There are people who have tremendously important things to say, but they say it so poorly that nobody would ever want to read it. They don't know how to put it into the kind of vehicle that people will stop and get into.
And then, there are others who are so deft and graceful, but they're not really saying anything at all. When you combine something to say with the skill to say it properly, then you've got a good writer. The idea of something to say goes back to the individual matter of finding something to believe in.
Q: Do you think it is essential to have something to believe in?
TS: I've spent most of my life worrying about things that people believe in. More and more, I've come to the feeling that I'm looking for people who believe in something, virtually anything, providing they believe in it. We've been acculturated in the last fifty years or so to become so equitable in our thinking. Because of our ability to see both sides of every question, we cancel ourselves out. We've become political ciphers. We don't vote. We don't take sides. We say, "On the other hand ..." We say, "However..."
This world has been moved and shaken. The movers and shakers have always been obsessive nuts. Name any mover or shaker you like - I don't care if it's Attila the Hun or Jesus of Nazareth or Karl Marx or F.D.R. or Winston Churchill. They were all obsessive nuts. They were not even-minded people who saw both sides of the question. Far from it.
I'm not saying that I admire Adolf Hitler because he was a dedicated human being. That's an extreme situation. But without going to absolutely dangerous extremes, you have to be dedicated to something. You must really believe in something.
For example, look at the phenomenon of Star Trek. Star Trek was founded by a guy, Gene Roddenberry, who had some fine Mom and apple pie values. He believed in equality of the sexes, equality of the races, and in the American ideal of freedom and justice. He really and truly believed in these things, and still does to this day. Every episode of Star Trek bears out these particular convictions of Gene Roddenberry. You'll find some of these things in all of them. That's what Star Trek is about and this is why it has endured.
Some of the episodes were a little bit on the hokey side. George Jessel used to wrap an American flag around himself and dance across the stage in order to get applause. If people didn't applaud him, they were going to applaud the flag. Once in a while, Gene was guility of that and I won't deny it.
Nobody ever said that he was an equitable, even-handed liberal human being. He isn't. By no means, he isn't. He's an autocrat. Nevertheless, his convictions are real. And that's the one secret that Hollywood has still not understood - the matter of conviction, of believing in something.
Q: Which episodes of Star Trek did you write?
TS: As a matter of fact, I wrote six. I sold four, and two were aired, which was pretty well par for the course in those days. The two that were aired were Amok Time and Shore Leave. Shore Leave was the one that begins with the big rabbit. That was a gas because anything could happen. Any wild idea you could possibly have could be stuck into that script. Everybody had a good time with that one.


http://www.physics.emory.edu/~weeks/misc/duncan.html (http://www.physics.emory.edu/%7Eweeks/misc/duncan.html)

D_Davis
01-10-2008, 09:28 PM
I finished Double Star. It is not very good. It's so light, and fluffy, and there is hardly any conflict or drama worth mentioning. Even at 118 pages, it is too long.

At lunch I started To Marry Medusa/The Cosmic Rape, by Theodore Sturgeon. Damn it's good, and frightening, to be back in Sturgeon's mind. What a madman. Sturgeon has a way with words that just blows my mind. It's like he's writing with his own version of the English language. It's all concrete, and it is all good. So far, within the first 3 chapters, I've read of bum digesting a maggot infested, horse-meat hamburger, complete with alien spore, a date rape, and the ramblings of a mad prankster hiding in his victim's house, waiting to kill. Harrowing stuff!

D_Davis
01-11-2008, 04:40 AM
Wow. Wow. Wow.

To Marry Medusa is awesome. Totally, mind blowingly, incredibly awesome. This is a book that could turn anyone into a fan of Sturgeon and the genre as a whole. Anyone who likes to read well written fiction, with amazing and harrowing situations, interesting characters, and a deep understanding of humanity will love this book. It also helps that it is simply overflowing with amazing ideas, darkness, love, passion, violence, and intense, overwhelming emotions.

This man is truly a literary giant.

I feel sorry for people who don't read Sturgeon - and I was one of these not too long ago. I cannot imagine my reading life without him now. Anyone who avoids him because of genre stigma should be ashamed. This is good reading, on par with anything I've ever read.

Started it today at lunch, just finished it. One of the most captivating books I've ever had the pleasure of reading.

megladon8
01-11-2008, 04:59 AM
Sounds awesome.

*Amazon's it*

D_Davis
01-11-2008, 05:07 AM
Sounds awesome.

*Amazon's it*

It was also published under the title, The Cosmic Rape, which is a more apt title.

D_Davis
01-11-2008, 02:11 PM
I started Frederick Pohl's Gateway this morning.

...

I was just thinking about Sturgeon. He was writing in the style of the new wave, complete with its vernacular, syntax and themes, like 10 years before the movement properly kicked off. It's amazing to think that I don't often see his name mentioned along side the other big names of this era: Bester and Ballard.

I think that Sturgeon is a writer's writer. He's the literary equivalent of King Crimson. He writes for people who enjoy the craft of writing. So many authors love the dude, and yet the world at large seems to be kept in the dark. It's not that his stuff if impenetrable , either. It definitely has a unique rhythm and flow, but I've never had the feeling that he was trying to impress people with his prose. It's honest and heartfelt, and full of emotion. I feel elated after having read a Sturgeon book, more so than any other author I can think of.

D_Davis
01-12-2008, 03:02 PM
To Marry Medusa - Theodore Sturgeon

Gurlick. The illiterate stumble bum. The drunken louse, the destroyer of humanity. The eater of the soggy, discarded, horse-meat hamburger. The receptacle for the alien's spawn.

The Medusa. An alien hive-mind. The consumer of two galaxies, whose next target is the Earth.

Guido. The hater of melody, the murderous prankster. Hell-bent on the total annihilation of all music, and those who would make it.

Henry. The boy too-tall for his age, with a face like an adult's. Abused by his father. “You're a sissy, a coward,” he says. So scared and frightened, all he can do is cry.

Dimity Carmichael. An ugly and lonely woman. Haggard. She lives vicariously through the sexual escapades of a young woman addicted to the act.

Sharon Brevix. The four year old. Inadvertently left on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere by her mother and father. Left all alone, except for a doll, to wander the country side.

So far as I can tell, Theodore Sturgeon did not populate his books with typical heroes. His books are not full of dashing men and gorgeous woman performing feats of daring-do, saving the world, and having a grand time doing it. Sturgeon liked to introduce his readers to the less desirable, the dregs of humanity, the discarded, the forgotten, the downtrodden. The kind of people, good or bad, that other people consciously try to avoid coming in contact with. You know the kind. You're walking down the street. Ahead of you, you see a man. He looks dirty, unkempt, you can already smell him. Is that piss, or blood streaming down his leg? Does he only have one shoe on? You don't know him. He could be a great man on the inside, a man in need of compassion, or help, or a dollar, or a smoke. All you know is that at the next light, you're crossing, even though you don't need to. And then, perhaps later, you start to question why you did what you did. As human beings, shouldn't we want to help one another? Sturgeon writes about these kinds men and woman, and he does so with passion, with sincerity, and with an uncanny understanding of humanity.

Like The Dreaming Jewels and More Than Human, To Marry Medusa is not a book to be taken lightly, to flippantly read through to pass the time. Even though Sturgeon was toying with genre conventions, and working within the realm of science fiction, this is heavy duty stuff. Essentially, you could boil down the book's plot to a simple alien invasion story. This is the skinny, wireframe, the postulation: what if an alien hive mind came to consume the Earth, and what if this being's first contact with humanity was in the shape of a total loser, a man who hated humanity? In order to bring the minds of the people back into formation, to reform the gestalt of the one mind, The Medusa must first learn how to work through a fractured and troubled psyche.

So, while the basic idea itself is nothing new, the way Sturgeon handles it casts forth a brilliant light and strips away any feelings of tiredness, cliche, and banality. The structure alternates between the Gurlick/Medusa arc, and a series of anecdotes detailing the actions of different characters throughout the world. What do these seemingly random events have to do with The Medusa's plan? At first, things feel disjointed, chaotic, and strange. Sturgeon switches POV, one of the narratives is told through the first person, while the others are told through third person, and it really isn't clear what any of these anecdotes have to do with anything. However, rest assured, Sturgeon brings everything together in a masterful way. It is clear that I was in the hands of an author who truly understood the power of fiction, and knew how to craft his prose to deliver the maximum impact. Sturgeon's writing is exemplary, but it is not often easy to read. He has a unique voice, with his own rhythm and cadence. He's a literary King Crimson, and once you tap into his gig, it totally delivers in amazing ways.

I - and “I,” now, think as I work of what is happening - a different kind of thinking than any I have ever known...if thinking was seeing, then all my life I have thought in a hole in the ground, and now I think on a mountaintop. To think of any question is to thing of the answer, if the answer exists in the experience of any other part of “I.” If I wonder what I was chosen to make that leap from the car, using all my strength and all its speed to carry me exactly to that point in space where the descending machines would be, then the wonder doesn't last long enough to be called that: I know why I was chosen, on the instant of wondering

To Marry Medusa takes the concepts of an alien invasion, and wraps around this simple convention a vibrant exploration of humanity. At it's core are the themes important to Sturgeon, themes dealing with loss, loneliness, love, abuse, and passion. More so than any other genre author I have read, I get the sense that Sturgeon truly loved humanity. Even while he was writing about despicable characters doing nasty things to one another and themselves, he never comes across as being misanthropic. He was not pointing out these biological blemishes to say how faulty we are, but, rather, he was showing us the directions in which we should aim our compassion, love, patience, and understanding. Sometimes it is hard for us to see the humanity under the grotesque surface, but Sturgeon could, and I believe that he wanted to help lift this veil so that we might experience something good and awesome.

D_Davis
01-14-2008, 02:17 AM
Gateway is pretty good so far. It has an interesting main character, he's a total coward and not heroic at all. At least, not so far. I like the character interactions, and the premise is interesting as heck. Mankind has discovered a hollowed out asteroid. They determine that an ancient race called the Heechee used it as a kind of intergalactic hub. Scattered around the surface of the asteroid are thousands of ships. Each ship can go to a few pre-determined destinations, chosen seemingly at random, and then they return to the hub. The humans volunteer to take these ships to wherever they go, and then look for artifacts and stuff to take back to the Earth and sell. The are intergalactic prospectors. However, sometimes the ships go to very dangerous places, and sometimes the crew comes back dead. Each trip is a gamble.

megladon8
01-14-2008, 09:31 PM
My mom is loving "The Crack in Space".

She says it's like nothing she's ever read before - which is true, since she has always hated the idea of reading science fiction.

But she sees now what I meant when I said it's not like the typical sci-fi involving busty women blasting away aliens in cheesy galactic space operas.

Winston*
01-14-2008, 09:35 PM
Allow me to use this opportunity to once again pimp out "I Am Legend".

I read this book the other week. It was pretty good.

megladon8
01-14-2008, 09:45 PM
I read this book the other week. It was pretty good.


Glad you liked it.

I thought the ending was brilliant.

Well, I think the whole damn thing is brilliant, but that ending's a definite punch in the gut.

D_Davis
01-14-2008, 09:47 PM
But she sees now what I meant when I said it's not like the typical sci-fi involving busty women blasting away aliens in cheesy galactic space operas.

It's strange. People often talk about this as their idea of what sci-fi is, but as a reader of the genre, rarely do I ever come across this kind of stuff. I guess I've just had good road maps provided for me - I've known what to look for, and what to stay away from.

megladon8
01-14-2008, 09:49 PM
It's strange. People often talk about this as their idea of what sci-fi is, but as a reader of the genre, rarely do I ever come across this kind of stuff. I guess I've just had good road maps provided for me - I've known what to look for, and what to stay away from.


I see that kind of stuff as fantasy, not sci-fi.

I find things are too-often qualified as sci-fi just because they take place in space, or involve people with laser guns.

To me, sci-fi is more about ideas and philsophical concepts than about the setting of the future/space/other worlds.

I have always considered the Star Wars movies to be fantasy, not sci-fi.

Winston*
01-14-2008, 09:50 PM
Glad you liked it.

I thought the ending was brilliant.

Well, I think the whole damn thing is brilliant, but that ending's a definite punch in the gut.
I liked the bit with the dog the best.

I wasn't blown away by the book or anything, but it was solid.

megladon8
01-14-2008, 09:51 PM
I liked the bit with the dog the best.


Yes that was very good, and very sad.

What did you think of the book's more scientific take on vampirism?

Granted, it's been done since then in stuff like Blade, but I thought it was done much better here.

Winston*
01-14-2008, 09:56 PM
Yes that was very good, and very sad.

What did you think of the book's more scientific take on vampirism?

Granted, it's been done since then in stuff like Blade, but I thought it was done much better here.
Pretty well thought out, some things were more convincing than others. You should see the British show Ultraviolet if you haven't, it's along similar lines.

megladon8
01-14-2008, 09:59 PM
Pretty well thought out, some things were more convincing than others. You should see the British show Ultraviolet if you haven't, it's along similar lines.


As long as you're not trying to trick me into seeing the Milla Jovovich movie, I'll check it out.

megladon8
01-15-2008, 03:27 AM
My mom finished "The Crack in Space" and loved it from start-to-finish.

We spent quite a while just talking about it and the ideas it brings forth about race, religion, politics, etc.

She said she is going to be asking me pretty soon for another PKD book to read :)

D_Davis
01-16-2008, 12:53 AM
Pohl's Gateway is pretty good. A lot different than what I had imagined. The premise led me to believe this would be a kind of space opera teeming with exploration and mystery, but it's not. It really is an intricate character study of a deeply troubled space prospector who learns to deal with feelings of guilt, homosexuality, love and loss. Like the character, the narrative kind of meanders around for long stretches of time, and simply exists to convey emotions of oppression, depression and apathy. There were many times where I felt like grabbing the main character by the lapel and slapping him around. It is well written and interesting, and offered something a little different, I just don't know if I enjoyed where it went.

D_Davis
01-16-2008, 01:01 AM
Next up, three shorts by Sturgeon:

Case and the Dreamer
If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?
When You Care, When You Love

D_Davis
01-17-2008, 04:49 AM
I finished a short story by Sturgeon this evening called, If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister.

It extrapolates upon its taboo subject masterfully, and once we get to the meat of the narrative, and we realize what it is that Sturgeon is conveying, it becomes rather thought provoking.

Why are some things so taboo that we cannot, no matter what the ends, see past them? Are there things that are so taboo that we would rather avoid them even if embracing them might, say, lead to the cure of cancer and insanity?

This seems like the basic question Sturgeon asked himself before writing. And in the long list of taboo subjects, there isn't much of anything more taboo than incest.

I've always thought of Sturgeon as an author who liked to push buttons, and this offers more proof. However, he does not press buttons for shock value, but, instead, he does so so that we will look at things in a slightly different light, and continue, or begin, to "Ask the question."

Ask the question.

Was that not Sturgeon's motto, his mantra, the guiding thought behind most everything he wrote?

While he is only playing devil's advocate here, he is most definitely not condoning incestuous relationships, he does bring up some fascinating questions about the topic.

Let's simply agree that incest is absolutely morally wrong. What is so biologically wrong with it? Most people will answer that the problem comes with a thinning gene pool and that babies will be born with deformities and with mental retardation. But aren't babies born with these problems in "normal" sexual relationships? And, don't "normally" sexually active people engage in the act of sex without the desire to reproduce? Why does the word "incest" trigger within us thoughts of biological defect? Dogs and cows are inbred, by human manipulators, to bring about desirable biological traits. A bull will have its way with generations of its own offspring. And we encourage this for our own well-being.

Ask the question.

Don't just agree with the answers we are told.

Sturgeon is amazing.

D_Davis
01-18-2008, 02:27 PM
I started reading Sturgeon's, The [Widget], the [Wadget] and Boff this morning. It's in a two volume collection I got yesterday called, A Treasury of Great Science Fiction. It is a really good collection.

Anyhow, so far Sturgeon's story is fantastic. It examines humanity from the eyes of an alien race. This alien race has determined that all beings, throughout the universe, have an innate ability to socially self-adjust so as to cause as little trouble for their respective societies as possible. However, there is only one species that his this trait but often times refuses to use it: Homo sapiens.

D_Davis
01-18-2008, 03:22 PM
Gateway - Frederik Pohl

It's the distant future, and things suck - what's new? Mankind has mostly strip-mined the Earth, mostly, of its natural resources, overpopulation is a huge problem, and everyday-normal life is hard and expensive. Our last, and only, hope lies in a strange alien planetoid called, Gateway: a wondrous and mysterious artifact left from a vanished race known as the Heechee. Gateway serves as a launching point for space prospectors who gamble it all in hopes of striking it rich while exploring the uncharted regions of the universe on ships programmed with cryptic, predetermined trajectories.

Before reading Frederik Pohl's Hugo award winning novel, I had a completely different picture of it in my mind. The above synopsis, while accurate, does not truthfully convey the actual thrust of the narrative. I imagined that Gateway would be a grand and epic space opera filled of alien planets, mystery and discovery, and while these things are touched upon, it is a different beast altogether. Set within the boundaries of a fantastic premise and the conventions of the science fiction genre, Gateway is, in fact, a nuanced character study using its genre trappings as an imaginative springboard. While reading this, I was constantly reminded of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War; the two novels wonderfully compliment each other. While Pohl doesn't directly reference the Vietnam War like Haldeman does, he examines many of the same problems plaguing the Vietnam Vets upon their homecoming.

The narrative is presented through present day conversations between Robinette “Bob” Broadhead and his mechanical shrink (jokingly referred to as Sigfried), and flashbacks detailing Bob's time as a prospector. During the therapy sessions, Sigfried guides Bob along a journey plagued with deep rooted feelings of guilt and sexual confusion. The flashbacks focus on Bob's time in Gateway and his unhealthy relationship with a woman named, Klara. The two quickly find themselves drowning in asea of apathy, lacking the necessary courage to embark on any of the prospecting trips, and so they lounge around, drinking at the bar and gambling away their savings while their lives fall apart. Once they finally do take off in the Heechee ships, things go from bad to worse.

I've read complaints from some readers saying that Bob is whiny and apathetic, and therefor unlikable and uninteresting. While I don't disagree, he is whiny and apathetic, I don't see this as negative. He is a deeply conflicted individual, and Pohl writes him in a believable and convincing manner. By creating an honest and unflinching portrayal, it becomes clear that Pohl truly respects his creation. Bob's idiosyncrasies, quirks and problems are not simple contrivances on which Pohl hangs his story - they are the story! The Heechee, the ships, the lost treasures, these are all just Macguffins used to develop Bob's character and his own intense personal journey. I'll be honest: while reading this, I wanted more space exploration, more answers, and, yes, more excitement. I wanted things to open up into an incredible and fascinating vista of breathtaking proportions. I was a tad bit disappointed at the time. But, after letting the narrative sink in for a few days, I have grown to appreciate it more for what it offers.

What is most surprising is how interesting the book is given the fact that it is rather static; not a lot happens within its 250-pages. Bob and Klara sit around, drink, gamble, have sex, float around in zero-G, do some gardening, and throw and attend parties for prospectors soon leaving or recently returned. Oh yeah, and sometimes Bob is sitting around talking to a mechanical shrink about how his idea of love was having his mother hold him while a thermometer was shoved up his butt. He gets mad, cries, throws a fit and acts like a jerk. At times I hated Bob, at times I wanted to throttle him, at times I wanted him to get off his ass and do something. I don't know if I ever really liked Bob, but I'll be damned if Pohl doesn't create a character and put him into situations that aroused a response in me. Through Bob, Pohl drew me into his world, and for a few hours I was living in a place that I would never even want to visit.

This is powerful writing.

D_Davis
01-19-2008, 01:51 AM
Case and the Dreamer - Theodore Sturgeon

“Ask the next question.”

This was Theodore Sturgeon's motto, and the driving force behind much of his work. It is also the meaning of the silver “Q” with an arrow through it that he wore on a necklace around his neck. He loved to ask questions, questions that, once asked, would reveal thought provoking and sometimes shocking answers. Each question asked unearths another layer, and each question answered reveals more questions.

In Case and the Dreamer, a collection of three short stories, Sturgeon asks questions about love. The first story, the title story, asks questions dealing with interspecies, alien love. The second story, If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister, the best story of the three, asks, “Is there a kind of love so heinous that it could turn an entire planet into a pariah?” And the final story, When You Care, When You Love, is a surprisingly timely story about love and human cloning. When You Care, When You Love is the least interesting of these. To tell you the truth, I didn't get much out of it at all. For this reason, this review will solely focus on the first two stories.

Case and the Dreamer tells the story of a man and woman who find themselves marooned on a strange alien world. It is told mainly in flashback, from the point of view of the man, Case, who died but is brought back to life by a holographic being. Case remembers his time with Janifer, the woman, and their tumultuous stay on the alien planetoid. The two formed a powerful relationship, and yet he was never able to say the simple words that Jan wanted to hear: I love you. Their lives were plagued by a strange presence that haunted and tormented them, getting more violent and devious as time went on. In the present, Case learns the identity of this alien entity, and discovers what it wanted all along. Case is an interesting name for such a character. A case is properly used when it is tightly closed to hold something inside. But to use the contents, it must be opened, and they must be exposed to the possible dangers of the world. Case, the character, was holding something inside, his emotions, and by not letting them out, by not truly confiding in his love, he inadvertently unleashes a vengeful force.

If All Men Were Brothers is by far the most interesting story of the three. It was originally written for Harlen Ellison's ground breaking anthology, Dangerous Visions. In his introduction, Ellison states that Ted Sturgeon saved his life - recently and literally. Ellison had entered into an extremely unhealthy, 45-day long marriage, and was barely clinging on to the last threads of his wits end. Sturgeon wrote Ellison a letter, a letter that saved Ellison's life. At one point in the letter, Sturgeon says, “There is no lack of love in the world, but there is a profound shortage in places to put it. I don't know why it is, but most people who, like yourself, have an inherent ability to claw their way up the sheerest rock faces around, have little of it or have so equipped themselves with spikes and steel hooks that you can't see it. When it shows up in such a man - like it does in you - when it lights him up, it should be revered and cared for.” And this, as Ellison puts it, “demonstrates the most obvious characteristic of Sturgeon's work - love.”

In this story, Sturgeon writes about a kind of "love" that, even today, continues to make people sick, disgusted and angry. A kind of "love" that is immoral and biologically apprehensible. He writes about incest; an entire planet where this heinous act is not only encouraged, it is simply the way of life. Sturgeon was an author who liked to push buttons, but he didn't do so just to shock or to lazily draw attention to himself. Sturgeon did so to get his readers to ask the next question. Why is incest so terrible? Let's agree that it is morally wrong. Okay, so incestuous sex leads to a shallowing of the genre pool, and offspring with birth defects and brain damage. Yes, it can. But aren't these problems also associated with children birthed from “normal” sexual intercourse? When incest is brought up, why do people always turn to child birth as a problem? Don't "normal" sexually active people have sex without the desire to procreate? Don't we also force dogs and cattle into incestuous sexual relations to obtain desired physical traits? Why has incest become such a taboo subject? What if such an existence was - gasp - beneficial? Are we so afraid of some things that we won't even take the time to try to evaluate them? I bet some of you reading this right now are feeling a little bothered that I am even mentioning these questions.

Here, Sturgeon is not condoning the act of incest, but he is asking us to examine in a deeper way the things that repulse us, to get to the true heart of the matter. It is only now, in the 21st Century, that homosexuals are beginning to enjoy the same kinds of freedoms and privileges that heterosexuals do. Only a few decades ago, homosexuality was labeled as a mental defect, a disease, something to be cured. A couple hundred years ago, Africans were treated as animals, a sub-human species. Woman weren't granted the right to vote until the 1960s! If no one ever asked the question, and then asked the next question, and continued to ask the questions until the right answers were revealed, where would we be today? Sturgeon was an author who always asked the next question, and I can see publishers sweating it out in apprehension. “This is supposed to be science fiction!” they might have said, meaning, "where are the spaceships and Martians?" And this is science fiction, in its purist and most perfect form. This is speculative fiction that examines the essence of humanity, of life and of love, and does so in ways unbridled by the power of a boundless imagination.

D_Davis
01-20-2008, 03:52 PM
Just finished The [Widget], the [Wadget] and Boff. What an interesting story. It perfectly sums up what I perceive to be Sturgeon's two most important themes. The first examines his motto, "Ask the next question," and the second examines the human species acting as a single entity, as a collective mind, the homo gestalt, and perhaps moving closer to a destination defined by peace and love.

It could be read as Sturgeon's manifesto - The [Widget] and the [Wadget] are basically manifestations of Sturgeon. It's as if he puts himself into the story to test his own ideas and theories.

Once again, Sturgeon continues to amaze me. He worked on a remarkably different level than just about every other author I've read in the genre. Why must he be dead? To have met him would have truly been an amazing thing.

D_Davis
01-20-2008, 04:25 PM
I can't help but feel that the sci-fi elements of TW,tWaB actually lessen the impact of the book. They almost feel like they were added in as an afterthought in order to fit the requirements of the genre.

Imagine if in Daisy Miller, at the end of certain chapters, there were log entries written by Randolph, who was really an alien in disguise, in which he was examining Daisy's relationship with Winterbourne.

The sci-fi stuff in Sturgeon's book could easily be ripped out, and this would not hurt the novella at all. In fact, I think it would actually make the narrative more powerful because it would lessen the feelings of the infodump.

D_Davis
01-21-2008, 12:35 AM
Some cool film footage of PKD:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1419728276201997644&q=Philip+K.+Dick&total=250&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

And a cool little hour long documentary:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4001465267762345383&q=Philip+K.+Dick+duration%3Alo ng&total=15&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2

D_Davis
01-21-2008, 03:02 PM
I'm taking a break from Sturgeon for a bit.

Last night I started Clifford D. Simak's, Way Station. It is really good so far. It's about this old house in the middle of Nowhere-America that is actually a way station for intergalactic travelers. The way station is operated by a man who is over 100 years old - he actually fought in the Civil War (the book takes place in the early 1960s). Neither the operator or the house seem to age at all.

Really good stuff so far. Simak's writing is fantastic.

D_Davis
01-21-2008, 05:40 PM
Wow. Way Station is totally brilliant. I cannot believe how amazingly perfect it is. This is a book for the ages. It's like a cross between the X-Files, Joe R. Lansdale, and Hemingway. It has wonderfully written passages dealing with nature and the rural country side of Wisconsin, coupled with a fantastic premise teeming with mystery, discovery and alien life. The main character, Enoch Wallace, is one of the greatest characters I've ever had the pleasure to spend time with. He is a man of honor, of curiosity, of generosity, of contemplation and of action. He thinks when he needs to think, and he acts when he needs to act. Simak captures his impossible age and maturity in a way that draws forth a great deal of humanity.

This is truly a stunning example of American literature.

I really like this cover, too. It captures the tone of the novel so well.

http://a1055.g.akamai.net/f/1055/1401/5h/images.barnesandnoble.com/images/8580000/8587033.jpg

D_Davis
01-22-2008, 04:07 PM
Today I will be starting, Time is the Simplest Thing, by Simak.

Llopin
01-22-2008, 05:45 PM
And a cool little hour long documentary:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4001465267762345383&q=Philip+K.+Dick+duration%3Alo ng&total=15&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2

It's pretty interesting, really, it just made me want to read some more Dick.

I'm thinking of getting ahold of Flow My Tears, since it's one of the few "major" novels of his I haven't experienced yet.

Concerning Way Station, I mostly agree; I read it about a year ago and was truly engaged by its down-to-earth yet un-earthly storyline. The relationship formed between Enoch and his alien contact is strangely touching, and his experiences with the extraterrestial guests are truly bewildering. And it's written in a gentle, beautiful way which makes it accessible, yet by no means simple.

D_Davis
01-22-2008, 06:23 PM
Simak's prose is deceptively simple. It's very hard to write in such a concise manner. Through concrete language and brevity he writes a book teeming with nuance.


Flow My Tears is awesome. I really like this book a lot. I want to reread it soon so I can properly review it.

D_Davis
01-23-2008, 12:19 AM
In Robert Heinlein's introduction to Godbody, Sturgeon's final novel, published after his death, he says that Sturgeon loved humanity more than anyone he had ever met. Sturgeon's capacity for love and understanding was uncanny, and he possessed the qualities of a saint.

With every passing thing I read from him, I am beginning to discover this as well.

D_Davis
01-23-2008, 01:07 AM
The [Widget], the [Wadget] and Boff - Theodore Sturgeon

The [Widget], the [Wadget] and Boff can be read as Theodore Sturgeon's manifesto; it represents the summation of his motto, “Ask the next question,” and dives deep into his common theme of love and compassion. While reading it, I could easily picture Sturgeon channeling himself through two of novella's main characters, Sam and Bitty. Sam and Bitty Bittleman are the owners and operators of a boarding house populated by a small group of human live-ins. I make the distinction of the occupants being “human” because Sam and Bitty are not. The Bittlemans are a kind of synthetic alien life, one a [Widget] and the other a [Wadget], sent to the Earth to study a condition (supposedly) possessed by all beings known as Synapse Beta Sub Sixteen.

Synapse Beta Sub Sixteen is akin to a social inner-ear, a “reflex of reflexes,” allowing an individual to “reflexively adjust when imbalanced in his sociocultural matrix.” This synapse allows for cultures to evolve as a single unity, to, at times of great crisis, rise up and overcome - without this synapse, no culture stands a chance at prolonged survival. While humanity must, logically, possess this synapse, the Bittlemans have discovered that it is either a dormant biological trait or that we have chosen to ignore it - both possibilities equally problematic. We do seem to be a somewhat socially-maladjusted species. At times of great crisis we often turn to war, violence and selfishness rather than to compassion, understanding and selflessness. We seem to be on a path towards a more fractured existence rather than one of unity. To more fully understand this phenomena in the human species, the [Widget] and the [Wadget] are used to probe the minds of a select group of human test subjects in hopes that their experiment will allow humanity to more easily listen to this social inner-ear.

I believe, like Sturgeon did, that humanity has an amazing capacity for love and compassion. However, it appears that we often forget these aspects, and it might take an outside force to remind us of our capacity for kindness. To me, this is what religion and spirituality are all about: the maps designed to get us back on the right road, the one paved with our positive qualities. Somewhere along the way (original sin, perhaps?) we have been conditioned to turn to selfishness, which leads us to acts of violence and inhumanity towards our brothers and sisters. We have forgotten the voice of our social inner-ear, and whether this voice is spiritual (a conscience) or biological (a synapse) is not the point. Like an expert musician trains his ear to hear and decipher pitch, so too must we train ourselves to hear this inner voice; we will be damned if we do not.

Sturgeon introduces his reader to many characters in this novella - perhaps too many. It is, at first, a lot to juggle. While the importance of each of their quirks and idiosyncrasies is not apparent, it becomes clear that each of these characters represents a less desirable facet of humanity: guilt, greed, presumptuousness, callousness, depression and so on. However, Sturgeon neither condemns his characters, nor uses them to pass judgment on humanity. He simply presents a vertical slice of their lives to us and allows them to exist, hopefully to learn. As the narrative progresses, each character becomes more fully realized, and yet I never thought that any of them became fully developed characters. They are, instead, used to represent the ideas. This is not a character piece, but rather it is didactic in nature. Sturgeon writes with a strong agenda in mind, and every convention he uses is used to illustrate his theme.

I do have a slight problem with the way the science fiction conventions are used here. They seem to be forced in to make the novella more genre-like. I don't have a problem with Sturgeon including these genre conventions, but the execution left me a little puzzled. I get the feeling that Sturgeon didn't fully trust his readers to grasp what it was he was doing, and so he, unfortunately, reverts to the infodump all too common with the writing of the time. It is, in no way, a detriment to the narrative, but I can't help but wonder how a more mature Sturgeon might have reworked the story. I would have preferred some of the science fiction elements to be left more ambiguous, and I think the novella would have been that much better for it.

Like most of his work, the more I think of The [Widget], the [Wadget] and Boff, the more I like it. Sturgeon's writing has a way of crawling under my skin and sneaking up on me. And once sneaked, it stays with me for a very long time. He is so unlike any other science fiction author I've ever read. Reading his stuff is almost like reading the religious works of C.S. Lewis or Thomas Merton, two of my favorite theologians. When I read Lewis and Merton, I get the sense that they had a deep understanding and empathy for humanity. I read their words and my spirit gets charged with something good. I feel the same when I read Sturgeon. When I read some authors, I want to write, but when I read Sturgeon, I want to love.

D_Davis
01-23-2008, 06:35 PM
So I just received the Tor Double edition of Theodore Sturgeon's the [Widget]... (it is coupled with an Asimov novella).

If I saw this book in the book store, and didn't know who Sturgeon was, there is no way in hell I would ever pick it up - just based on the cover alone.

It shows a little boy reading a book, in the dark, with a big green dragon behind him. A caption reads, "Only Robin could REALLY see the aliens."

Good. God. Terrible.

D_Davis
01-23-2008, 09:09 PM
Some more praise for Sturgeon:

I bought Some of Your Blood and More Than Human for my good friend Doug, for Christmas. He had this to say:

Some Of Your Blood.
I hated the start.
Thought the middle was alright, and getting better by the page.
The last part might the best thing I've ever read and I wanted to start the book over and it made me love the whole book. Turns out I was wrong about the beginning and middle and they are spectacular. Defiantly in my top 3 books ever now.

megladon8
01-23-2008, 09:12 PM
Some more praise for Sturgeon:

I bought Some of Your Blood and More Than Human for my good friend Doug, for Christmas. He had this to say:

Some Of Your Blood.
I hated the start.
Thought the middle was alright, and getting better by the page.
The last part might the best thing I've ever read and I wanted to start the book over and it made me love the whole book. Turns out I was wrong about the beginning and middle and they are spectacular. Defiantly in my top 3 books ever now.



Sweet. I've had that one on my shelf for some time now...I should crack it open soon.

Seems like strange territory for Sturgeon, though. 'Tis about vampires, while I thought he wrote pretty much exclusively sci-fi.

D_Davis
01-23-2008, 09:21 PM
Sweet. I've had that one on my shelf for some time now...I should crack it open soon.

Seems like strange territory for Sturgeon, though. 'Tis about vampires, while I thought he wrote pretty much exclusively sci-fi.

I would say that, in all actuality, Sturgeon's stories are more love stories than science fiction stories. While he does use some popular sci-fi conventions, I find that most of the stuff I've read from him has more in common with humanistic fiction.

But, he wrote a lot of horror as well. Many of his stories have been collected in Horror anthologies.

"No living writer has quite Sturgeon's grasp on horror and hilarity, nor knows quite so many kinds of people so well." -- Groff Conklin

Conklin was a famous anthologist of horror and sci-fi in the 1950s.

He basically wrote about mankind, and our potential capacity for love and of how we have lost part of our humanity. He just so happened to tell his stories using genre conventions.

megladon8
01-23-2008, 09:28 PM
I would say that, in all actuality, Sturgeon's stories are more love stories than science fiction stories. While he does use some popular sci-fi conventions, I find that most of the stuff I've read from him has more in common with humanistic fiction.

But, he wrote a lot of horror as well. Many of his stories have been collected in Horror anthologies.

"No living writer has quite Sturgeon's grasp on horror and hilarity, nor knows quite so many kinds of people so well." -- Groff Conklin

Conklin was a famous anthologist of horror and sci-fi in the 1950s.

He basically wrote about mankind, and our potential capacity for love and of how we have lost part of our humanity. He just so happened to tell his stories using genre conventions.


Hmmm...I wasn't aware of his prolific status in horror.

I really must read this book.

D_Davis
01-23-2008, 09:34 PM
Hmmm...I wasn't aware of his prolific status in horror.

I really must read this book.

The Dreaming Jewels is creepy as hell.

He is in the same vein of horror that Bradbury was. I guess you could call it "carnie-horror" or "Americana-horror."

Sturgeon was actually a world-class tumbler, and he wanted to join the circus for his profession. Unfortunately, he got really sick and his heart was damaged, and so he had to give up on that dream. He wrote the Dreaming Jewels in response to this. It is about a boy who is abused and escapes to join a circus.

Both To Marry Medusa and More Than Human contains some incredibly dark and bleak moments. He can get pretty nasty in his ideas, but he rarely, if ever, relies on shocking prose or overly grotesque descriptions.

megladon8
01-23-2008, 09:36 PM
The Dreaming Jewels is creepy as hell.

He is in the same vein of horror that Bradbury was. I guess you could call it "carnie-horror" or "Americana-horror."

Sturgeon was actually a world-class tumbler, and he wanted to join the circus for his profession. Unfortunately, he got really sick and his heart was damaged, and so he had to give up on that dream. He wrote the Dreaming Jewels in response to this. It is about a boy who is abused and escapes to join a circus.

Both To Marry Medusa and More Than Human contains some incredibly dark and bleak moments. He can get pretty nasty in his ideas, but he rarely, if ever, relies on shocking prose or overly grotesque descriptions.


Yes, "The Dreaming Jewels" is his first book, isn't it?

It's one I almost got the other day, but opted for "More Than Human".

monolith94
01-26-2008, 12:49 AM
He can get pretty nasty in his ideas, but he rarely, if ever, relies on shocking prose or overly grotesque descriptions.

Heh, you could say this about Alfred Bester, too.

D_Davis
01-26-2008, 04:37 PM
Way Station - Clifford D. Simak

Enoch Wallace fought in the American Civil War. It is now the 1960's and Enoch is still alive, which would make him at least one-hundred years old. However, Enoch doesn't look a day older than his mid-thirties. What's more, Enoch still lives in the same house that he grew up in, and it, too, has conquered the effects if gravity and decay. But that's not all. Enoch is also the caretaker of a Way Station, an intergalactic embassy/terminal, a mysterious rest stop, a place for alien lifeforms to relax while traveling along the super-highways that connect one planet with another. Enoch Wallace is the Earth's representative, the liaison between humankind and non-humankind. For decades, things have gone well for Enoch, his strange house and his otherworldly career, but things change, and soon he finds himself in the midst of an intergalactic social snafu that could determined the fate of the Earth's status in the planetary congress.

Clifford D. Simak's Way Station reads like an X-Files episode penned by John Steinbeck or Ernest Hemingway. With the rural country side of Wisconsin as the backdrop, Simak paints a pastoral picture that bursts to life with Americana, antique relics, old houses and a simpler, but not simple minded, way of life. Way Station is teeming with passages depicting Enoch's natural surroundings, and I longed to experience the place for myself. I envied Enoch's life, his long walks throughout the forests and meadows, and his contemplative mood birthed from the immense amount of time he has been alive. What an existence! As if near-immortality isn't miraculous enough, he also gets to meet hundreds of alien species, talk to them, exchange gifts with them and learn of the universe in all of its capacity. Of course, such a life has a dark side. One can't be alive for this long without drawing some unwanted attention, and loneliness is often a symptom of longevity. All too soon I found myself empathizing with Enoch as his amazing life began to crumble.

Enoch Wallace is an amazing character. One of my all-time favorites. I loved every moment I got to spend with him. I would love to meet someone like him in the real world. The name Enoch is a fascinating one, one that carries with it deep rooted spiritual connotation. It is a Biblical name, the name the angel Metatron had before his heavenly ascension. Metatron acted as the voice of God, he was God's liaison with humankind, a heavenly voice box if you will. The name also has importance in the occult. The Enochian Language is said to be the language of the angels. This idea was popularized in the early 16th Century by Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelly, two occult magicians, some say charlatans, who tried to decipher and discover a great spiritual power. In each of these mythologies, the name Enoch is defined as some form of language, or a kind of communication, and Simak expertly infuses his character with these qualities.

Simak's prose is deceptively simple. It is hard to write in such a concise and powerful manner. By avoiding flowery and ornate description, Simak's prose expertly mirrors the mannerisms of Enoch. As the POV character, Enoch is direct, he gets to the point, says what he means, and doesn't mess around; throughout his long life, he has learned to chose his words carefully. Simak constructs his sentences in the same manner - form follows function here. Isaac Asimov once said that “[he] couldn't help but notice the simplicity and directness of [Simak's] writing - the utter clarity of it,” and so “[he] made [his] mind up to imitate it.” And it's true, reading Way Station was a breath of fresh air. It is so direct, so terse, so engaging that I simply couldn't put it down, and I read the entire thing in a single sitting, in around six hours.

Clifford D. Simak seems to be a forgotten treasure of American literature. I don't know too many people who have read his stuff, and yet he was highly admired by his peers and won multiple awards, including a Hugo for Way Station (controversially beating Dune for top honors). In the simplest way possible, the best thing I can say about Way Station is that it blew my mind. Truly. With each passing page I fell more and more in love with Simak's prose, the characters and the narrative. The relationships Simak depicts are powerful and emotional, and there were a couple of moments that almost brought me to tears. Way Station has become a book that I will gift to others, even if the recipient has not declared him or herself a fan of science fiction. I want others to experience the power of Simak's story, and I can only hope that they will be half as engaged and moved as I was.

D_Davis
01-28-2008, 02:00 PM
I started Sturgeon's Some of Your Blood, last night. Damn - it's good. I should have it dusted by tonight.

megladon8
01-28-2008, 02:21 PM
I started Sturgeon's Some of Your Blood, last night. Damn - it's good. I should have it dusted by tonight.


:)

Awesome! I really need to get around to reading it.

I love the cover of my copy...

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/4008/51ruhvevwqlss500tf4.th.jpg (http://img246.imageshack.us/my.php?image=51ruhvevwqlss500t f4.jpg)

Millipede Press are great, but too damn expensive.

D_Davis
01-28-2008, 02:40 PM
:)

Awesome! I really need to get around to reading it.

I love the cover of my copy...

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/4008/51ruhvevwqlss500tf4.th.jpg (http://img246.imageshack.us/my.php?image=51ruhvevwqlss500t f4.jpg)

Millipede Press are great, but too damn expensive.

I just picked this version up. I have a first edition MM, but it is so old that the pages are brittle and falling out. I bought it for 35 cents.

I like this edition, it is very nice, but damn did they ever stretch it out to get the page count higher! The damn thing has almost 2 inch margins on the pages!

It does include a related short story at the end though, so that is cool.

How much are they in Canada? This was only $12 here.

lovejuice
01-28-2008, 06:15 PM
d, my local bookstore carries no book by sturgeon. why do you always have to be into hard-to-acquired author?

D_Davis
01-28-2008, 06:29 PM
d, my local bookstore carries no book by sturgeon. why do you always have to be into hard-to-acquired author?

The good stuff is always the hard to find stuff. :)

D_Davis
01-28-2008, 08:27 PM
I had no idea Sturgeon was involved in one of the all time great literary hoaxes. Just another reason to love the man.

http://www.sniggle.net/libertine.php


From “A Lesson for ‘Sensation’ Lovers” by Eric Fettmann:


Jean Shepherd died last weekend at the age of 78… More than 40 years ago, this most gifted of radio monologists — a lost breed, to be sure — perpetrated one of the great hoaxes of the century and, in the process, taught us a great deal about intellectual pretension masquerading as critical judgment.


Shep was an icon all along the East Coast, especially in New York. For 21 years, he broadcast on WOR-AM, mostly on an all-night show and, on Saturdays, live from the Limelight Cafe in Greenwich Village.


Working in free form, seemingly without a script, he spun hilarious tales from his Indiana boyhood and delivered social commentary on the culture of the ’50s and ’60s. Marshall McLuhan hailed him as “the first radio novelist”; a series of stories from his book “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash” was made into the 1983 film “A Christmas Story” (written and narrated by Shepherd) which TV Guide called “one of the great Christmas classics of all time.”


But for all his penchant for nostalgic story-telling — and no one could weave a tale as skillfully as he — Shepherd was no homespun hick. On the contrary — he championed the poetry of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Sax Rohmer and Robert W. Service, produced an acclaimed PBS series, “Jean Shepherd’s America” and was one of the earliest writers for the Village Voice. Harper’s Magazine once called him “radio’s noble savage.”


He also delivered the kind of trenchant and cynical observations on popular culture that quickly won him a cult following. Which is what led him to prick a few balloons in the mid-’50s with his celebrated “I, Libertine” hoax – in which Shepherd and his listeners created a national furor over a totally non-existent book.


“It all started when I got into a discussion one day about people who pretend to know everything,” Shepherd wrote later in the Voice. “We thought it would be a good gag to undermine their faith by creating a demand for something that didn’t even exist. We dreamed up the name and the author on the spot.”


Set in England during the 1700s, “I, Libertine” chronicled the exploits of Lance Courtnay, by day a respected man about town, by night an uninhibited rake. Its author was said to be Frederick C. Ewing, an acknowledged expert in 18th-century erotica who completed the book while serving as a British civil servant in Rhodesia. Naturally, Ewing didn’t exist, either.


Shepherd told his listeners to go into their local bookstores the next day and ask for “I, Libertine.” They did — and the uproar began.


Prompted by the sudden demand, booksellers started calling Publisher’s Weekly trying to locate the distributor. Articles began appearing everywhere about the publishing sensation; the New York Times Book Review even included “I, Libertine” in its list of newly published works.
Some of Shepherd’s college listeners expanded the gag by writing serious-seeming papers on the book.



A Columbia student submitted a review of “I, Libertine” as his thesis — a B-plus. A Rutgers professor returned one meticulously footnoted paper on the fictitious Ewing with a note commending the student on his “superb research.” The Philadelphia Public Library even opened a card file on Ewing.


“Friends would call to tell me that they’d met people at cocktail parties who claimed to have read it,” Shepherd wrote. “One of the professors at Rutgers casually mentioned the book at a Sunday literary meeting and somebody present said he’d just finished it. When pressed, he was evasive about the plot.”


In Boston, the book was banned by the Legion of Decency. New York Post gossip columnist Earl Wilson published a blurb, claiming he’d “had lunch with Freddy Ewing yesterday.”


After about four weeks, the Wall Street Journal exposed the deception (http://www.sniggle.net/redirect.php?u_referrer=/libertine.php&u_target=http://www.flicklives.com/Articles/Wall_Street_Journel/8-1-56/8-1-56.jpg) and it attracted international attention. In the ultimate irony, publisher Ian Ballantine — who had been pursuing paperback rights to “I, Libertine” — persuaded Shepherd to actually write the book, together with science-fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, under Ewing’s name.

lovejuice
01-29-2008, 05:57 AM
is more than human worth reading?

D_Davis
01-29-2008, 01:00 PM
is more than human worth reading?

Is life worth living?

:)

Heck yeah it is. It is amazing. I think my review for it is a few pages back.
Most people consider it Sturgeon's best novel. Myself, I think To Marry Medusa is better, but MTH is stunning. It is one of the more challenging sci-fi books I've read. You really have to think about what Sturgeon is saying.

D_Davis
01-29-2008, 02:27 PM
Some of Your Blood is a masterpiece. Brilliant in every way a book can possibly be brilliant. It is one of the finest examples of the power of insight and perspective I have read yet, and expertly illustrates how knowledge can completely change the way one looks at something.

As the reader, I was encouraged by Sturgeon to read this fiction, and then, slowly, one passage at at time, Sturgeon completely changes the meaning of what I had read and forces me to reread it. It is like reading with my eyes closed at the beginning, but then having them opened up by a series of questions (ask the next question!).

It is a bit gimmicky, yes, but it is none the less a work of powerful fiction. And the power of the work does not rely on the gimmick, nor will it lessen the impact of future reads. Sturgeon uses mixed POV, an untrustworthy narrator, letters, comments, Q&A sessions, and mystery to draw the reader into the mind of a truly troubled individual.

What a book!

megladon8
01-29-2008, 06:18 PM
I just picked this version up. I have a first edition MM, but it is so old that the pages are brittle and falling out. I bought it for 35 cents.

I like this edition, it is very nice, but damn did they ever stretch it out to get the page count higher! The damn thing has almost 2 inch margins on the pages!

It does include a related short story at the end though, so that is cool.

How much are they in Canada? This was only $12 here.


I got it for about $12 as well.

But the hardcovers and art books by Millipede are several hundred dollars each.

And it's awesome to hear how great it is - I really need to get this one read :)

D_Davis
01-30-2008, 12:39 AM
I started Joe Haldeman's Mindbridge today. It is really good so far. Haldeman is incredibly creative in the way he tells the story. The "chapters" as they aren, aren't really chapters. It's kind of hard to explain, but Haldeman uses a variety of different perspectives and methods to tell the story. He uses traditional narration, excerpts from fictional peer-reviewed scientific journals, screenplay-style dramatic scenes, notes, official memos, transcripts of voice recordings, charts, graphs and diary entries. Each of these little pieces is used to reveal a different facet of the story, and each method is used for a particular reason. It is quite unusual, and makes for a gripping and refreshing read.

D_Davis
01-30-2008, 02:25 AM
Some of Your Blood - Theodore Sturgeon

Some of Your Blood. Where to start? How do I begin to review this powerful work of fiction? Theodore Sturgeon begins the book by encouraging us, the reader, to dive in, to examine, and to experience a fictional case study, compiled by a Dr. Philip Outerbridge, of a man named George Smith.

Sturgeon says:

You know the way. You have the key. And it is your privilege...

But open your eyes now and look at the folder before you. On the index tab at its edge is lettered:

“George Smith”

The quotation marks are heavily and carefully applied, almost like a 66 and a 99.

Go ahead.

Open it.

You know the way. You have the key. And it is your privilege. Would you like to know why? It is because you are The Reader, and this is fiction. Oh yes it is, it's fiction. As for Dr, Philip Outerbridge, he is fiction too, and he won't mind. So go on - he won't say a thing to you. You're quite safe.

It is, it is, it really is fiction...

What a peculiar way to begin a novel. But then again, this is Sturgeon I am talking about, an author enamored with peculiarity, with pushing the boundaries of fiction, with begging us, The Readers, to truly and carefully understand what it is he is saying. Just as Sturgeon possessed a great deal of love and understanding for his characters, for humanity really, so too did he possess these qualities for his readers. And more so than anything else I've read by him, Some of Your Blood demands careful attention, for it is a meticulously nuanced novel, and one that demands to be reread almost immediately upon its completion.

The less you know about the story, the plot, the better off you will be. I wish that I had gone into this book totally blind. Even reading the short synopsis printed on the back, and the essay introducing the novel, gives away too much. Knowing that Sturgeon is presenting his own take on a dyed in the wool mythos led to too much anticipation on my part. It's not until the final third of it that the conventions of the mythos are even discussed and I wish that knew nothing of the premise to begin with.

The structure used to tell the story is novel and a bit gimmicky, but in no way does the narrative, or the emotional resolution hinge upon the gimmick. That is, this is a book that rewards rereading, and a second, or third time through will not be hindered because of some cheap conceit. Some of Your Blood expertly conveys the idea of shifting perspective, of how a little bit of additional knowledge can drastically change the way one might perceive something. And like anything worth examining in detail, subsequent examinations are a must.

While reading the first half, I felt as if I was reading though a haze of obscurity, as if I were only catching glimpses of what was being conveyed. In fact, this is exactly what Sturgeon wanted. As the layers of George Smith's sour existence begin to be peeled away, I began to see and understand more about George, and in turn my empathy with him grew. Some of Your Blood is a physical representation of a paradigm shift, but once my vision had been shifted, once the veil had been lifted, I did not feel fooled or deceived. I didn't think, “dammit! Why didn't I see that?” On the contrary, Sturgeon's gradual method of revealing by degrees is done to ease the reader into George's state of mind and his predicament. All too often, when humanity is presented with a shocking revelation, we react in a knee jerk fashion, and this has led to all kinds of problems of prejudice and close mindedness.

George is a troubled individual, some might say sick, some might say mentally retarded, and Sturgeon paints him with the strokes of a master artist. This is a literary portrait of a man revealed through a narration of questionable trust; in any other book, George would be the “villain,” but here, once again, Sturgeon presents to us a sympathetic and grotesque individual and demands that we, The Readers, accept and embrace him for everything that he is. We may not agree with what, or who he is, his actions, his morality, his code of ethics, but we cannot simply disparage him because of some instinctual reliance on genre conventions or a defensive need to dismiss something that is foreign and frightening.

I know this review is obtuse, but I am not sorry. I am not withholding information to avoid SPOILERS, or anything that insignificant. I could easily tell you exactly what happens in the book and it would still be a remarkable read for you. I don't know how many of you ever seek out the books I review that you haven't read, but if you you seek out this one, I think it is best to go in knowing as little as possible. Not because I want you to be shocked, because you probably won't, it's not a “shocking” book, but because I think it would be awesome to be fully led by Sturgeon through this masterful volume and not have the experience tainted by anticipation.

D_Davis
01-31-2008, 09:04 PM
Wow - Mindbridge is freaking awesome. Such a well written and exciting story of planetary expedition and first contact. Really, really good. It contains one of the most kick ass action sequences I've ever read in a book. Normally, I hate action in books. It is rarely exciting, and often just convolute. Haldeman handles it with an amount of skill I've rarely read.

This is a fantastic example of hard-sci-fi mixed with space opera. A definite read for anyone interested in the genre.

D_Davis
02-02-2008, 01:06 AM
I started Sturgeon's last novel, Godbody. It is quite strange, almost pornographic, except it has a point. It is all about a Christ-like figure, named Godbody, who comes into town to teach people how to love through meaningful and passionate sexual intercourse. There are nine chapters, and each chapter is from the POV of a different character moved in some way by Godbody.

D_Davis
02-02-2008, 04:25 PM
Mindbridge - Joe Haldeman

After I read The Forever War, I knew that Haldeman was a good writer. After reading Mindbridge I am prepared to declare him a great writer. Mindbridge is a perfect example of how solid writing and interesting execution can turn even the most basic of genre convention into something worth reading, engaging, and all together entertaining. It tells the story of humankind's trek into outer space, and our first contact with a strange and brutally vicious alien entity. By traveling to distant planets in far away galaxies, groups of geoformers, called Tamers - highly trained para-military personnel - work to determine how hospitable a planet might be for human settlers. The method of space travel used, called “sling shotting,” is interesting and sets up a number of cool scenarios.

Human scientists have discovered a kind of teleportation (called “translating”), limited in the amount of matter that can be teleported, and by how long the teleportee can stay teleported before being sling shotted back to headquarters. During a routine (it's never a “routine” anything, is it?) translation, a small force of Tamers stumbles upon a strange alien creature (called a “bridge”) that grants those who have touched it limited telepathic capabilities - thus bridging their minds. What the Tamers don't know is that by interacting with these bridges, they have opened themselves up to outside forces and set in motion a chain of events that could spell doom for humanity.

The two main characters are Jacque (he dropped the “s” so people wouldn't call him zhockes) Lefavre and Carol Wachal, both Tamers. Lafavre is especially sensitive to the alien telepathy, and Wachal is especially adept at kick alien ass. Like in The Forever War, Haldeman spends a great deal of time with his characters, and illustrates their relationships, personalities, and idiosyncrasies in nuanced ways. Jacque's and Carol's relationship here feels authentic, and what begins as nothing more than sex for “scientific” purposes (to see how a bridge might influence the act of coitus) naturally turns into something more meaningful and endearing. Haldeman has a good grasp and understanding of basic human interactions, and nothing any of the characters ever do seems out of place or disingenuous.

So we basically have a novel dealing with first contact populated by some space marines and scientists - brains, brawns, beautiful women, and studly men. Pretty typical stuff, the makings for a dozen space operas. However, the way in which Haldeman conveys all of this is interesting, and does wonders to propel the plot forward at a breakneck speed. Mindbridge reminds me of the television shows Law and Order and Homicide, and I mean this in the best possible way. These shows tell their stories in episodic fashion. The plots are built with short segments in which only the most crucial and important aspects are shown. They leave out all of the boring stuff in order to compress “real time” events and tell a concise and interesting story within the episode's time limit.

This is exactly what Haldeman does with Mindbridge. He leaves out the boring parts (why don't more genre authors do this, especially now with all of those multi-volume, five-hundred page monstrosities choking the shelves of Borders Books?). Mindbridge contains over fifty segments. Some of these are the chapters detailing the main narrative; there are fifteen of these. The others feature a wide array of methods taking care of the infodump. There are newspaper articles, articles from peer reviewed scientific journals, charts, graphs, memoirs, technical briefings, and help wanted advertisements. Each of these fifty parts offers something different, and each is only a handful of pages. The way Haldeman builds his book with a series of small, interconnected pieces makes it a fresh and exciting read.

Mindbridge is good science fiction, it is good space opera. It also contains one of the greatest action sequences I've ever read in a book - mind blowingly good (just wait until you read it, I am sure you'll agree). Mindbridge does not strive for any deep insight into the human psyche. It is not built upon a novel and totally original idea. However, it is a perfect example of how a common plot can be made engaging and exciting through solid writing and creative execution. I'm sure we've all read dozens, perhaps hundreds, of stories detailing humankind's blundering discovery of an alien race and the subsequent, violent alien invasion. There's nothing new here. But like the best kung fu films, the treasure is in the details, in the execution of it all, and Haldeman executes his story with the precision and skill of a great master.

D_Davis
02-03-2008, 04:19 PM
Here is a video of Joe Haldeman discussing and reading from his newest book,


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=66013566223826 21854&q=Joe+Haldeman&total=2&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

D_Davis
02-03-2008, 04:27 PM
Interesting thought from Isaac Asimov...

He says that science fiction stories started becoming more interesting after they shifted from focusing on scientific advances to focusing on human reaction to scientific advances.

Nicely put.

D_Davis
02-06-2008, 03:20 AM
I am reading through The Stars My Destination again, for review. Wow. This book is so fucking punk rock, it's sick.

It gives the big middle finger to the science fiction genre, punches it in the face, curb stomps it, steals its car and drives away with its girlfriend.

monolith94
02-06-2008, 03:26 AM
Yeah definitely a gem. Lightning fast, too.

D_Davis
02-06-2008, 04:17 AM
Yeah definitely a gem. Lightning fast, too.

It's like a big damn freight train totally out of control barreling through everything we consider sci-fi or cyber-punk. The thing's got verve and style to spare, but it never fails to offer insight. It's an extraordinary book. Personally, I prefer The Demolished Man, but there is no denying the unhinged power of Gully Foyle's story.

D_Davis
02-06-2008, 04:18 AM
Godbody - Theodore Sturgeon

If I've ever read a work of fiction with a premise that could change the world for good it is Theodore Sturgeon's Godbody. It tells the story of Godbody, a messianic figure who comes to a small town to teach people how to love one another and how to express their love through passionate, healthy and uninhibited sexual intercourse. He heals the perception of those who have been sexually mistreated, and fosters a new appreciation of coitus in those who have forgotten its joys. Each chapter is told from the point of view of a different character touched by the work of Godbody, and details how his mysterious ways shape a new kind of connectedness with love, humanity and God.

Godbody is, at first, highly pornographic. It is the most erotic book I've ever read. Personally, it was a challenge to read, at times, because I am not often comfortable with this kind of material. But then again, this kind of material often lacks real purpose beyond titillation, and through Strugeon's insight, his understanding of humanity, the novel becomes something much more than a series of detailed sexual encounters. Making his readers uncomfortable was part of Sturgeon's modus operandi, he is, after all, the author that gave us a paradise of incest, defended homosexuality in the early 1950s, and presented to us physically and mentally abused characters with deep-rooted problems and broken spirits.

The characters in Godbody are his most fully realized. Dan and Liza Currier are two of the main characters, and the ones with whom I connected with the most. Dan is a pastor at a small church, and Liza is his beautiful, devoted wife. As a son of a two ministers, I understand the plights of those called into the ministry. The constant scrutiny of the church members and the pressures to behave in a superhuman fashion can have a devastating effect on a pastor's passion. Beyond his undying wish for more love I don't know what Sturgeon's own religious beliefs were, but his depiction of the Curriers rings with truth and honesty. All too often, religious characters in genre fiction are treated as nasty stereotypes, but Sturgeon avoids this pitfall and I respect him for it.

Joining the Curriers is Hobart Wellen, a disgusting man, guilty of rape; Britt Svenglund, a beautiful, bohemian artist who lives in the woods and spends a lot of time naked; Willa Mayhew, the local gossip columnist, hellbent on destroying the lives of those she despises and disagrees with (everybody but herself); Melissa Franck, a woman afraid of her own sexuality, and the victim of Hobart's sexual aggression; Andrew Merriweather, a wormy little banker in cahoots with Ms. Mayhew; and Harrison Salz, a cop being blackmailed by Ms. Mayhew. Each of these characters finds his or her life touched by Godbody in a way that changes their perceptions of sex and love. Godbody tears down the walls that have been raised by decent modern living, and reestablishes a connection between humanity and God.

Theodore Sturgeon spent his entire life writing to us about love and compassion, and that his most didactic and candid book would be published after his death possesses a strange kind of irony. He was never around to hear the ensuing gasps of shock, the backlash from those who were offended, or the feelings of pure joy from those who received his message. Just as his final creation, the messianic Godbody, died before his message was spread, so too did Sturgeon.

I am not comparing Sturgeon to a Christ-like figure, or declaring him to be some kind of prophet. This would be a crass and irresponsible proclamation. But it is odd to me that Sturgeon would die before his most heartfelt love letter was published. I would give anything to hear him talk about how the book has been received. It represents the summation of all that Sturgeon believed in, and it is, perhaps, the most perfect way an artistic life such as his could be punctuated. Sturgeon is speaking directly though Godbody; he's calling all of us to wake up, open our eyes, and love each other. This is a message worth living for and a message worth dying for.

D_Davis
02-06-2008, 02:15 PM
I'm going to read something a little different next, some steam-punk fantasy:

The Iron Dragon's Daughter

It sounds pretty good.

lovejuice
02-06-2008, 08:46 PM
just wonder what you guys, sci-fi affecinado, think of michael crichton?

D_Davis
02-06-2008, 09:14 PM
just wonder what you guys, sci-fi affecinado, think of michael crichton?

Never read him. His books are too long. It's gotta be something really special for me to read a book over 300 pages. I'm a length snob. There is so much good stuff from the classic and new wave era that is under 300 pages, and I rarely get more out of a book that is longer. If it takes me longer to read, I want to get more out of it, and with Crichton, I just don't see myself getting much.

I have nothing against his stuff, at all, it's jut not something I am interested in reading. He definitely takes a more scientific approach and I appreciate a more humanistic approach.

lovejuice
02-06-2008, 10:25 PM
Never read him. His books are too long. It's gotta be something really special for me to read a book over 300 pages. I'm a length snob. There is so much good stuff from the classic and new wave era that is under 300 pages, and I rarely get more out of a book that is longer. If it takes me longer to read, I want to get more out of it, and with Crichton, I just don't see myself getting much.

I have nothing against his stuff, at all, it's jut not something I am interested in reading. He definitely takes a more scientific approach and I appreciate a more humanistic approach.

to zing you i find crichton's novels much shorter than king's. lately the guy seems unable to produce anything under 300 pages.

you're dead on saying his take is more scientific. still i think his old ("classic") stuffs are really good, like the first JP, congo, and sphere which to this day is one of the finer sci-fi, thrillers i have read. you should really check him out. after all we know what the "sci" in "sci-fi" stands for, right?

D_Davis
02-06-2008, 10:29 PM
to zing you i find crichton's novels much shorter than king's. lately the guy seems unable to produce anything under 300 pages.


Which is exactly why I am having a hard time getting excited about King's new one. Ugh. So long.

He needs to find a good editor!

I just can't bring myself to tackle his novels much any more.

I was re-reading the Dark Tower books not too long ago, got to the Wastelands, and just stopped.

I think I am over my King phase, at least for the time being.

D_Davis
02-06-2008, 10:30 PM
I have a long book coming up:

To Stand on Zanzibar.

It's about 800 pages...it's daunting to be sure. But it sounds really fascinating. It's also quite experimental in its structure.

lovejuice
02-06-2008, 10:31 PM
Which is exactly why I am having a hard time getting excited about King's new one. Ugh. So long.


indeed. if there ever was a good argument for being a length snob, you need to look further than king.

D_Davis
02-06-2008, 10:34 PM
you're dead on saying his take is more scientific. still i think his old ("classic") stuffs are really good, like the first JP, congo, and sphere which to this day is one of the finer sci-fi, thrillers i have read. you should really check him out. after all we know what the "sci" in "sci-fi" stands for, right?

Yeah, maybe I will someday. I liked the Sphere movie, so maybe I will check that book out.

And to what you said, this is probably why I have a hard time classifying most of my favorites as "sci-fi." I really do prefer the term speculative fiction, because it is more open and generic.

I guess you could call it humanistic-science-fiction, in which the science deals more with human psychology than it does gadgets and theory. Or like Asimov said, it deals more with mankind's reaction to the science rather than the science itself.

lovejuice
02-06-2008, 10:42 PM
I guess you could call it humanistic-science-fiction, in which the science deals more with human psychology than it does gadgets and theory. Or like Asimov said, it deals more with mankind's reaction to the science rather than the science itself.

'tis a fine point, and in fact my sci-fi short stories are geared toward mankind's reaction than gadgets.

still how's many writers out there who know science like crichton? granted a harvard med is no carl sagan, but as a scientist, i find it's obvious contact is written by someone who's actually "know something" -- and to some degree congo and Jurassic Park. and as much as i like flow my tear, we all know where dick gets his "science".

not to belittle non-science writer though, but a real scientist/writer is a rare object to behold. :P;)

D_Davis
02-06-2008, 11:12 PM
Right - I often have a hard time getting into science fiction written by scientists for those very reasons. They are very clinical, and while they often explore fascinating ideas, I find that their grasps on humanity are sorely lacking.

And that is exactly why I have a hard time calling Dick a science fiction writer. He is a writer of speculative fiction.

I get more out of the genre when it approaches the conventions from a humanistic vantage point, ala Dick, Sturgeon, Bester, Ballard, and so on.

lovejuice
02-07-2008, 03:24 PM
OMG! flatland is a little wonder to behold!

D_Davis
02-07-2008, 03:50 PM
OMG! flatland is a little wonder to behold!

Flatland is awesome. The genesis of math-punk.

You may also like Rudy Rucker's spiritual sequel, Spaceland. Rucker is a mad genius. He is a Computer Science and math professor, and has written a text book on the fourth dimension. His descriptions of it in Spaceland are awesome.

lovejuice
02-07-2008, 04:17 PM
Flatland is awesome. The genesis of math-punk.

You may also like Rudy Rucker's spiritual sequel, Spaceland. Rucker is a mad genius. He is a Computer Science and math professor, and has written a text book on the fourth dimension. His descriptions of it in Spaceland are awesome.

how's flatterland then?

D_Davis
02-07-2008, 09:10 PM
The Iron Dragon's Daughter is really cool so far. It totally reminds me of an anime. It has hints of Neon Genesis and other "youngster-meets-giant-mech" stories, coupled with a Warhammer 40k-like mix of fantasy and machinery. I can totally picture a kick as animated film made out of it, although it would be a hard-R, that's for sure. It's pretty twisted.

D_Davis
02-08-2008, 03:36 PM
Man this book is awesome. I've never read a book that screamed louder to be turned into a Japanese animated film. It's got a young girl and a giant mecha pitted against the world, high school drama, magic, science, monsters and action.

It's like it was tailor made for the anime market.

Who can I call to make this happen?

I want Production I.G. on it, pronto!

Oshii is directing.

Music by Kenji Kawai.

lovejuice
02-08-2008, 09:47 PM
Man this book is awesome. I've never read a book that screamed louder to be turned into a Japanese animated film. It's got a young girl and a giant mecha pitted against the world, high school drama, magic, science, monsters and action.


as a big fan of anime, i'm now interested.

this book, more than human, i, robot, and the third book in ender's speaker series are in line for my next sci-fi reading.

D_Davis
02-08-2008, 10:08 PM
as a big fan of anime, i'm now interested.

this book, more than human, i, robot, and the third book in ender's speaker series are in line for my next sci-fi reading.

I think you'll dig it. It's well written, too.

Glad you are reading More Than Human.

I will get around to Ender's Game soon.

Next up for me will probably be Behold the Man.

Although, who knows what I'll have after my Powells shopping spree tomorrow. I can't freakin' wait.

D_Davis
02-11-2008, 01:10 PM
Well, the Iron Dragon's Daughter pulled a big switcharoo on me. The first 150 pages were great, the last 200 pages...not so much. It started off fresh and inventive, with some great situations and interesting characters, and then quickly started going nowhere. By the time the plot comes back to the narrative, it's too late, and the thing is so far off track that I just couldn't care any more. The dragon, you know the Iron one in the title, vanishes for most of the book, the main character Jane continues to make stupid decisions, and the whole thing becomes uninteresting. You could probably rip out about 75 pages and not miss them, but this still wouldn't cure the anti-climatic ending.

I am now reading I am Legend.

megladon8
02-11-2008, 07:04 PM
Kickass - I hope you love "I Am Legend".

D_Davis
02-11-2008, 07:13 PM
Kickass - I hope you love "I Am Legend".

About 70 pages in, and I am loving it. It's really good, and I don't know why it has taken me so long to read it.

I want to dive into some more of his stuff, along with some Clark Ashton Smith, and some more horror.

megladon8
02-11-2008, 07:19 PM
About 70 pages in, and I am loving it. It's really good, and I don't know why it has taken me so long to read it.

I want to dive into some more of his stuff, along with some Clark Ashton Smith, and some more horror.


Well I heartily recommend Matheson's "Hell House", which is a very creepy (albeit slow building) haunted house tale.

Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" is also quite eerie and unsettling.

There's lots of great horror out there, it's just knowing where to look. I steer very clear of most of the "big name" horror writers such as Bentley Little. I've tried 3 of his books, and they are just so simple and un-scary.

Brian Lumley's "Necroscope" series is great if you're looking for a sort of sci-fi themed vampire series. It's also nice if you're very anti-Anne Rice with regards to vampire lore.

D_Davis
02-11-2008, 07:28 PM
Bently Little and Robert McCammon are uber-hacks. Ugh, their stuff is just bad.

I will probably devote most of my horror time to Clark Ashton Smith and Matheson, while also diving back into Joe R. Lansdale and his buddy Norman Partridge, who wrote Dark Harvest.

http://hbpub.vo.llnwd.net/o16/jackets/258H/9780765319111.jpg

I am going to read this next. And if I like it, I am going to order a bunch of his books. Like Lansdale, most of his stuff is really hard to find.

Lumley's stuff is too long for my tastes. I just have a hard time devoting my time to reading a 400+ page pulp story.

megladon8
02-11-2008, 07:35 PM
A horror author I've been meaning to check out but whose books I can't seem to find anywhere is Greg F. Gifune.

"The Bleeding Season", in particular, is supposed to be great.

D_Davis
02-11-2008, 07:37 PM
A horror author I've been meaning to check out but whose books I can't seem to find anywhere is Greg F. Gifune.

"The Bleeding Season", in particular, is supposed to be great.

Never even heard of him. What's the draw?

megladon8
02-11-2008, 07:44 PM
Never even heard of him. What's the draw?


I had a friend in first semester of the ScriptWriting program who ended up leaving, and he was a huge horror fanatic. We spoke about books all the time.

He recommended this guy to me after I told him what I told you just a couple of posts back about most good horror being harder to find - not the mass-market type stuff that you buy at Chapters or whatever.

He said "The Bleeding Season" is fantastic, as is one called "Deep Night".

D_Davis
02-11-2008, 07:50 PM
I had a friend in first semester of the ScriptWriting program who ended up leaving, and he was a huge horror fanatic. We spoke about books all the time.

He recommended this guy to me after I told him what I told you just a couple of posts back about most good horror being harder to find - not the mass-market type stuff that you buy at Chapters or whatever.

He said "The Bleeding Season" is fantastic, as is one called "Deep Night".

Cool - his stuff definitely has an indie/small press look:

Bleeding Season sounds cool, although this first Amazon review sends up a rad flag:


Using a similar theme to Stephen King's 'The Body' and Robert R. McCammon's 'Boy's Life', one of a group of boys struggling towards adulthood and beyond, 'The Bleeding Season' is no camp follower or second contender to either of the mentioned famous stories.

McCammon is, seriously, one of the worst authors I've ever read. That he is constantly being compared to King while also gaining tons of praise from horror-heads is baffling to say the least. But then again, horror fans also love the Saw films...

You've piqued my interest though...

megladon8
02-12-2008, 12:18 AM
McCammon is, seriously, one of the worst authors I've ever read. That he is constantly being compared to King while also gaining tons of praise from horror-heads is baffling to say the least. But then again, horror fans also love the Saw films...

You've piqued my interest though...


Well, luckily that review seems to be comparing the concepts, rather than the actual writing.


And, unfortunately, I have to say I wasn't as taken with "Some of Your Blood" as you were.

I did really enjoy it as a dark and very depressing character study - George Smith is fascinating, and each new letter brought as many new questions as it did answers with regards to his past.

But this ultimately ended up being my biggest problem with the book - I left with too many unanswered questions. Not that this in and of itself is a bad thing. Books often leave one with many questions, and this is very effective ("I Am Legend", for example). But there were things in this story which I really wanted to know. Is Smith really a vampire, or is he just a sociopath? Is there anything supernatural at all going on here? Was that final line to Anne a hint at more going on in their relationship than we had been told earlier (ie, was Anne knowingly "feeding" him)?

As a study of a sociopath and a (to put it in laymen's terms) seriously messed up individual, it has many moments of brilliance. Sturgeon's writing is unlike anything I've ever encountered before - it's brief and succinct, yet poetic and endlessly evocative at the same time. That's probably the greatest part of this book, for me - Sturgeon's prose. And it's whet my appetite even more for "More Than Human", and the countless other stories this man has told.

But I just felt something was missing here.

That being said, after finishing the book I read the introduction, in which Steve Rasnic Tem talks about reading the book at the age of 15 and feeling much the same as I do. While he went in hoping/expecting to read crime fiction, I went in hoping/expecting to read a horror story. But, as he goes on to say, to try to put this book neatly into a genre seems like a disservice to it. It's like horror/sci-fi/fantasy/crime/period piece-themed literature.

In the end, Tem says that he found the book haunted him for years afterwards, and when he finally picked it up again to read it, he took much more from it and it actually blew him away.

I wouldn't be surprised if something similar happens to me.

D_Davis
02-12-2008, 12:36 AM
That's too bad about Some of Your Blood. But I think by focusing on the questions of vampirism is to miss the point of Sturgeon's story. He's writing about George's capacity to love in the face of a harrowing and terrifying existence. The whole vampire thing is just a Macguffin used to push the mystery along. Almost everything he ever wrote was a love story, and he used conventions from a number of genres to illustrate this theme:

humanity, as a species, has an incredible capacity to love and an incredible desire to be loved. However, something has caused us to lose focus of this, and something has created a chasm in our psyches that has divorced us from love.

Sturgeon's stuff works better in context with everything else he has written. It truly is a body of work, with an underlying theme and message. With each new thing I read by him, this becomes more clear and opens up insight into everything else I read by him.

Why does it matter if George was or wasn't a "vampire"? What is a "vampire," are we only using the established mythos? What mythos are we using? Couldn't a "vampire" just be synonymous with "monster," social outcast, lost soul?

In the end, it makes no difference, because what we are to get out of the story is that even a person, a monster, like George is compelled beyond reason to fill the void of love in his life. Sturgeon paints a picture of a vampire with more pathos, more emotion, and more life than any other I've ever read. And he does so not by just lazily making him a "tragic" villain, but by truly capturing his humanity in contrast to his monstrous side.

It's not a "vampire" story. It's a story about a guy who needs blood, the very essence of life, the fuel that allows our bodies to love, in order to survive and to fill his own desire to love and to be loved. Going in to this thinking it is a "vampire" story drastically limits the potential impact the book can have, because it sets up a preconceived series of genre conventions one expects. This is the curse of genre.

megladon8
02-12-2008, 12:55 AM
It's not a "vampire" story. It's a story about a guy who needs blood, the very essence of life, the fuel that allows our bodies to love, in order to survive and to fill his own desire to love and to be loved. Going in to this thinking it is a "vampire" story drastically limits the potential impact the book can have, because it sets up a preconceived series of genre conventions one expects. This is the curse of genre.


This is, I think, the problem I had.

As I said in my reference to the introduction, I went in expecting a vampire story (just as Tem went in expecting a crime story).

I didn't expect a macabre love story, and while I definitely got that from it, it left me a little bewildered and unsure of what to make of it.

It was interesting to see how that original act of love on the part of his mother - how she was so sick while breastfeeding that blood was mixing in with the milk, yet she refused to stop breastfeeding for the baby's sake - turned into bloodlust on his part. And how that motif of blood being symbollic of love carried through. He killed animals, and then people, and drank their blood in a search for what he understood to be "love". And how when he threw the knife at his father then drank from the wound, it was like the first time he had ever received a loving gesture from his father (though, obviously, he was incredibly mixed-up in thinking this was his father's love and acceptance he was finally receiving).

It was fascinating, for sure. It just wasn't at all what I expected, and now that I know what it is that the book has to offer, I'm sure I will take more from it on a second read through.

D_Davis
02-12-2008, 01:01 AM
Including the word "vampire" on the back of this book is about the stupidest thing that could possibly be said. Which is why I said in my review:


The less you know about the story, the plot, the better off you will be. I wish that I had gone into this book totally blind. Even reading the short synopsis printed on the back, or the essay introducing the novel, gives away too much. Knowing that Sturgeon is presenting his own take on a dyed in the wool mythos led to too much anticipation on my part. It's not until the final third of it that the conventions of the mythos are even discussed and I wish that knew nothing of the premise to begin with.

...

I know this review is obtuse, but I am not sorry. I am not withholding information to avoid SPOILERS, or anything that insignificant. I could easily tell you exactly what happens in the book and it would still be a remarkable read for you. I don't know how many of you ever seek out the books I review that you haven't read, but if you you seek out this one, I think it is best to go in knowing as little as possible. Not because I want you to be shocked, because you probably won't, it's not a “shocking” book, but because I think it would be awesome to be fully led by Sturgeon through this masterful volume and not have the experience tainted by anticipation. The first edition I have says:

Psychosis: Unclassified
Behavior: Dangerous, Violent

Some of Your Blood


That is brilliant. Nowhere is the word "vampire" ever mentioned.

At least you liked his writing!

D_Davis
02-12-2008, 01:08 AM
It was interesting to see how that original act of love on the part of his mother - how she was so sick while breastfeeding that blood was mixing in with the milk, yet she refused to stop breastfeeding for the baby's sake - turned into bloodlust on his part.

Right. George's idea of "love" was misplaced with his taste for blood. He equates the drinking of blood with love. The only times he was affectionately touched by his mother was while she was breast feeding him.

The same idea happens with his father. Once he drank some of his blood, and thoroughly freaked him out, his father stopped beating him, and left him alone. So here, George learns to equate violence with peace.

Sturgeon writes a lot about how very real things impact and shape his characters. The abuse that George suffers coupled with the neglect, turns him into a monster. But he is not a monster in the sense that we think. He is not a villain, or some ghastly creature. He is a monster in the sense that he has been completely divorced from a healthy, humane existence. George has lost his humanity, and he needs blood to bring back into the fold.

megladon8
02-12-2008, 01:09 AM
Including the word "vampire" on the back of this book is about the stupidest thing that could possibly be said.

I agree, especially since vampirism is practically mentioned in passing.

Phil considers the idea that Smith is a vampire, questions him on it, but by the end of the story I'm pretty sure he's completely dismissed this theory and is now just of the mind that he's messed up due to a crummy life.



At least you liked his writing!

:) You make it seem like I didn't like the book at all!

As you can see from the rating in my sig, I liked it quite a bit.

But yes, his writing is brilliant. He writes with such precision, but I also don't picture him huddled over a typewriter racking his brains to find the "perfect" word(s). It seems like the perfect words just flowed right out of him - he maturally wrote with brevity, clarity and precision.

I think I value and appreciate that style of writing much more than I do writing which takes 15 pages to describe a lamp.

Though, of course, that style has its time and place as well.

megladon8
02-12-2008, 01:16 AM
Right. George's idea of "love" was misplaced with his taste for blood. He equates the drinking of blood with love. The only times he was affectionately touched by his mother was while she was breast feeding him.

The same idea happens with his father. Once he drank some of his blood, and thoroughly freaked him out, his father stopped beating him, and left him alone. So here, George learns to equate violence with peace.

Sturgeon writes a lot about how very real things impact and shape his characters. The abuse that George suffers coupled with the neglect, turns him into a monster. But he is not a monster in the sense that we thing. He is not a villain, or some ghastly creature. He is a monster in the sense that he has been completely divorced from a healthy, humane existence. George has lost his humanity, and he needs blood to bring back into the fold.


You're making me want to read the book again right now! :P

I also really liked George's insistance that he is actually quite passive, and does not want or need or fantasize about killing people (or even hurting them). It's just the blood he's interested in, and to him its not about causing them pain or depleting them of something they need to live.

Even when he eventually tells the psychiatrist that he wanted to kill the officer that he hit, it's only after tons and tons of psychoanalysis and testing and prodding at his mind. He was basically telling the doctor what he wanted to be told, because the doctor could never comprehend George's disturbed psyche and idea that blood = love. Instead, he just let the doctor believe that he's a psychotic killer.

And when he killed the little boy by the lake, it's not like he abducted a random boy and killed him. The boy was already seriously injured, and considering he was far from home and only wearing swimming trunks, he probably would have died anyways. This obviously does not make what George did "right", but it adds to the idea that George is not some cold-blooded killer and a danger to the world. He has - as you said - lost his humanity and isn't capable of the empathy that most of us feel.

You know, just from discussing this with you I'm liking it more. I'm going to bump my rating up slightly.

D_Davis
02-12-2008, 01:18 AM
:) You make it seem like I didn't like the book at all!

As you can see from the rating in my sig, I liked it quite a bit.

But yes, his writing is brilliant. He writes with such precision, but I also don't picture him huddled over a typewriter racking his brains to find the "perfect" word(s). It seems like the perfect words just flowed right out of him - he maturally wrote with brevity, clarity and precision.

I think I value and appreciate that style of writing much more than I do writing which takes 15 pages to describe a lamp.

Though, of course, that style has its time and place as well.

No - I just want you to like it more because it really is brilliant. ;)

This can be a problem with admiring something so much and then convincing others to partake. It's a double-edged sword. Part of me wants to keep Sturgeon to myself, so that I can admire his work in my head without a contrary word from someone else. But, then, part of me wants everyone to read him in hopes of them liking his stuff as much as I do, which is rarely the case.

Just in terms of style, prose and wordsmithing, Sturgeon is on a level that I rarely come across. I wish I encountered more genre authors that wrote with as much passion and understanding for humanity.

D_Davis
02-12-2008, 01:22 AM
You're making me want to read the book again right now! :P

And when he killed the little boy by the lake, it's not like he abducted a random boy and killed him. The boy was already seriously injured, and considering he was far from home and only wearing swimming trunks, he probably would have died anyways. This obviously does not make what George did "right", but it adds to the idea that George is not some cold-blooded killer and a danger to the world. He has - as you said - lost his humanity and isn't capable of the empathy that most of us feel.



Once I reached a certain point, about 3/4 of the way through, I started it over. It really was beneficial for me.

You bring up some interesting points here that illustrate the complexities of George's character. These are not painted as simple contrivances to make George a sympathetic villain. He is not simply a conflicted serial-killer or psychopath. This would be a far too easy and lazy characterization. It's more deep rooted than this.

D_Davis
02-12-2008, 01:25 AM
Oh, by the way, I am almost done with I am Legend, and I think it sucks.





HA!

Just kidding. It's totally bad-ass. I love how it is as much a study of intellectual growth as it is a study of an absurd and terrifying situation. It's quite good. Neville is a great character. While reading it, I started to more fully understand some of your pre-movie-release concerns.

megladon8
02-12-2008, 01:27 AM
No - I just want you to like it more because it really is brilliant. ;)

This can be a problem with admiring something so much and then convincing others to partake. It's a double-edged sword. Part of me wants to keep Sturgeon to myself, so that I can admire his work in my head without a contrary word from someone else. But, then, part of me wants everyone to read him in hopes of them liking his stuff as much as I do, which is rarely the case.

Oh, I feel the exact same way about many things - books, films, video games, bands, etc.

You feel like they somehow "belong" to you, because they connect with you on a level that not much else does, and that no one else seems to connect with on such a personal level.

megladon8
02-12-2008, 01:29 AM
Once I reached a certain point, about 3/4 of the way through, I started it over. It really was beneficial for me.

You bring up some interesting points here that illustrate the complexities of George's character. These are not painted as simple contrivances to make George a sympathetic villain. He is not simply a conflicted serial-killer or psychopath. This would be a far too easy and lazy characterization. It's more deep rooted than this.


I didn't see George as a villain at all - sympathetic or not.

When people joke about a character "just needing a hug", well, that's a very simplistic and minimalist way of looking at George. He needed love and affection, just as all people do.

megladon8
02-12-2008, 01:30 AM
Just kidding. It's totally bad-ass. I love how it is as much a study of intellectual growth as it is a study of an absurd and terrifying situation. It's quite good. Neville is a great character. While reading it, I started to more fully understand some of your pre-movie-release concerns.


Awesome! I'm really glad you're enjoying it.

I love how Neville is constantly trying to attribute scientific barriers to the virus, and while some answers he comes up with seem to hold, many of them don't.

Wait 'til you get to the end - it makes the book.

D_Davis
02-12-2008, 01:36 AM
Awesome! I'm really glad you're enjoying it.

I love how Neville is constantly trying to attribute scientific barriers to the virus, and while some answers he comes up with seem to hold, many of them don't.

Wait 'til you get to the end - it makes the book.

I'll have it dusted tonight.

It's just what I needed after the Iron Dragon's Daughter, which just dragged for last half.

Legend is fast paced, and really well written. The only parts I don't like are the brief flashbacks. I just find them unnecessary. But this is a very minor complaint.

And I love the part with the dog. I love how the dog's fate is mentioned so callously. Matheson does a great job of styling the prose to match Neville's personality.

I love how Neville struggles with his limited intellect, but utilizes the ample amounts of time he has to over come. Matheson illustrates the power of time expertly.

megladon8
02-12-2008, 01:49 AM
And I love the part with the dog. I love how the dog's fate is mentioned so callously. Matheson does a great job of styling the prose to match Neville's personality.

I love how Neville struggles with his limited intellect, but utilizes the ample amounts of time he has to over come. Matheson illustrates the power of time expertly.


This is one of the main problems I had with the idea of the film recent film. Neville is a military scientist in the film, so not only is he an undisputed genius, but he's armed to the teeth with high-tech weaponry. I thought this nullified a lot of the tension in the book, as well as the whole point of Neville not being anyone special.

He's not an action hero. He's not some guy who through incredible coincidence happens to be intricately connected to the outbreak.

He's just the guy that happened to survive.

I think the book is a superb study of loneliness, and just what that can do to a man.

The part where he has the female vampire strapped to the table and has to practically hold himself back from groping her was very telling, and written in a way that didn't seem vulgar or make him out to be a "pervert" - he is just a man, and men cannot deny that they have sexual urges. To be alone for that long and suddenly have a naked female laying unconscious in front of you, regardless of the fact that she's a monster, is quite testing.

Then the vampires add insult to injury when they spend every night outside taunting him, flaunting their naked bodies in front of him in an attempt to make him give up and come outside.

It's a terrifying situation, but I thought Matheson made it more emotional than frightening.

And I agree about the scenes with the dog. Again, I was worried going into the film since the dog has such a prominent role in the film's story. But the dog actually ended up being possibly the best part of the movie.

D_Davis
02-12-2008, 02:01 AM
Right! Neville's greatest trait is his determination - Matheson touches upon humanity's capacity to survive in the face of surmounting odds.

And I, too, love how the female vampires taunt him. Such a wonderful little detail that really adds a lot of sexual tension to the story.

megladon8
02-12-2008, 02:04 AM
Right! Neville's greatest trait is his determination - Matheson touches upon humanity's capacity to survive in the face of surmounting odds.

And I, too, love how the female vampires taunt him. Such a wonderful little detail that really adds a lot of sexual tension to the story.


And though we refer to them as vampires, and they are allergic to sunlight and crosses and wooden stakes and whatnot, did you notice that the term "vampire" is not used even once throughout the book?

D_Davis
02-12-2008, 03:03 AM
And though we refer to them as vampires, and they are allergic to sunlight and crosses and wooden stakes and whatnot, did you notice that the term "vampire" is not used even once throughout the book?

Uh, yeah it is. A bunch of times.

First sentence of chapter 3:

"The strength of the vampire is that no one will believe in him."

Chapter 6:

The vampires apparently had no idea of [the generator's] importance to him..."

Chapter 7:

[The cross], too, drove the vampires away.

Chapter 13:

...he wondered once again once again why the vampires had never set fire to the house.

Chapter 11:

The vampire was real.

No, not the vampire.

Vampires?

I dub thee, vampiris.

It's used all over the place! Neville refers to them as such as well. :)

megladon8
02-12-2008, 03:09 AM
Uh, yeah it is. A bunch of times:

It's used all over the place! Neville refers to them as such as well. :)


Wow, damn, I must be thinking of something totally different.

Ohh...I'm thinking of the movie. In the movie they're never referred to as vampires - because, well, it's not really made clear whether they are or not.

But anyways, I do love the mixture of scientific explanation and possibly supernatural phenomena.

*feels like a dolt*

See? This is the perfect example of what I have said many times - after I read a book (even only a few weeks later) I find it hard to recall specifics.

Even with a book like "I Am Legend" which I have read 4 times now.

megladon8
02-12-2008, 07:20 PM
So how did the ending of "I Am Legend" sit with you, Davis?

And I still feel like a moron from last night's "vampire is never mentioned" incident.

*smacks forehead - with a boulder*

D_Davis
02-12-2008, 07:41 PM
I liked the ending. I like how the book focuses on the concept of myth and legend, and how such things can evolve out of what seems like nothing. The ending actually left me wanting a sequel, which is quite rare. I would love to read a short story about the vamp-world, and about how the legend of Neville is portrayed. What kind of powers do they say he had? What kind of monster do they turn him into?

To me, this was the best part of the book - the questions it left me with at the end.

lovejuice
02-12-2008, 07:45 PM
d, i post a question for you in CJ7 thread. you might find it interesting.

megladon8
02-12-2008, 07:48 PM
I liked the ending. I like how the book focuses on the concept of myth and legend, and how such things can evolve out of what seems like nothing. The ending actually left me wanting a sequel, which is quite rare. I would love to read a short story about the vamp-world, and about how the legend of Neville is portrayed. What kind of powers do they say he had? What kind of monster do they turn him into?

To me, this was the best part of the book - the questions it left me with at the end.


Yes, I liked that idea that he had become a boogey-man to the vampires, the same way that the myth and folklore surrounding the vampires had given them that same status when humans still ruled the earth.

And, yet another shortcoming in the film version - they really mishandled the female who Neville finds later on.

And what did you think of that whole idea of the evolution of the vampires? How the first waves of them were mindless, bloodthirsty monsters, yet the latter ones were beginning to reform society and become a nation unto themselves. The world basically switched ruling parties, from humans to vampires.

megladon8
02-13-2008, 01:05 AM
Started reading "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said" and I am really enjoying it.

PKD is one of the most thoroughly entertaining writers I have ever encountered. His work really grabs me from the first few pages and I find myself compulsively reading for hours. I sat down and read the first 70 pages in one sitting of just over half an hour while waiting for my laundry to finish. I had poured a fresh cup of coffee, and it ended up going cold before I even took a sip because I was just so engrossed in the story.

It's a really interesting look at the concept of a "celebrity", and how their fame, fortune and power can crumble so easily. Jason is both a loathesome character and an interesting protagonist, and I'm really enjoying how each new chapter sheds a little bit more light on his past and what exactly these "sixes" are (of which he is one).

D_Davis
02-13-2008, 01:16 AM
Nice. Flow My Tears is awesome. The finale is a little jarring, but this is a minor complaint stacked up against the themes and ideas the book tackles. I do think it is one of Dick's more well-written books. His prose is wildly inconsistent, moving from passable to great, and with Flow I think he really nailed it. Especially the dialog. It is not natural, at all, but it possesses a unique quality.

Jason Taverner is an awesome character.

Unfortunately, it has been a few years since I've read this, so I don't know how much I really remember beyond the big picture.

D_Davis
02-13-2008, 01:17 AM
I am Legend - Richard Matheson

Finally getting around to reading a beloved book can be a task filled with apprehension. After years of hype and praise, there is a good chance that the book might be a disappointment, due to no faults of its own. Often times, I avoid these books. Not because they are popular, or for any silly reasons as such, but because I figure books like these are already well-loved and respected, and I would rather spend some time discovering and praising other books. So, with a little hesitation, I finally took the plunge and read Richard Matheson's I am Legend, and I am really glad that I did.

I've had the book for a few years, but upon a careful and recent hunt I was unable to locate my copy. And so, I ended up buying it again - I felt compelled to read it. Unfortunately, my new copy has a giant-ass red star printed (not a sticker) on the cover proclaiming, “Now a major motion picture starring Will Smith!” It looks really silly on the otherwise well designed face. I have not seen the film, yet, and I really want to, so don't take this comment as disparaging towards the adaptation. I actually like Will Smith as an actor, and I think the film looks good.

Anyhow, to get back on track, I am Legend is a very solid work of fiction. Just in case there are those out there who don't know yet, here is a brief synopsis. It tells the story of Robert Neville, a man who finds himself alone in a world overrun by vampires. He is the last pure-bred human. He has become the ultimate prey. Neville lives each day for only one thing: survival. He hunts and gathers supplies by day, hides and drinks by night. It's a mentally taxing existence to be sure, and there are a handful of moments where he almost loses it completely. Through bull-headed determination, and with the blessing of long and lonely days, he begins to piece together the truth behind the vampire mythos, and discovers just what in the hell is happening to the world around him.

I like that the story is as much a study of the pursuit of knowledge as it is a tale of survival horror. What makes a legend? What are the ingredients of a long lasting mythos? Through Neville's scientific and philosophical ponderings, Matheson examines these very questions. Neville is determined to discover the root of vampirism, and he begins to question the legend that surrounds these monsters. Why do vampires shy away from garlic? What power does the cross hold over them? Why do wooden stakes kill them? Why do they shrivel up in the sun's light? Neville examines each of these questions and actually discovers the truth behind the myth.

In doing so, Matheson creates a new myth, a new legend. I love these kinds of meta-textual stories, stories that examine the very fabric of fiction in the process. What is most remarkable is that Matheson does all of this in a very short amount of time. This is a short book, thankfully; it is written with brevity, and does not spend a great deal of time on world-building or “fleshing things out.” I hate this term, “fleshing things out.” To me, it means, “add padding to make a short book longer for no reason.” I am Legend does everything it sets out to do in a timely manner, and does not waste the reader's time on any amount of nonsense.

I am not prepared to declare this the greatest vampire book of all time. I know some that do. I won't even say it is a timeless genre classic. But what I will say should carry more weight, because it is without an ounce of hyperbole: I am Legend is a well-written, solid tale. It's a good book. I don't need a lot of adverbs to say this. It is a book with a one-track mind, and delivers a focused story of one man's quest for survival and knowledge. At the end of the day, I am happy I read it, and even with the amount of hype surrounding it, coupled with my heightened anticipation, I finished it with satisfaction. It's just a good book.

megladon8
02-13-2008, 01:18 AM
Nice. Flow My Tears is awesome. The finale is a little jarring, but this is a minor complaint stacked up against the themes and ideas the book tackles. I do think it is one of Dick's more well-written books. His prose is wildly inconsistent, moving from passable to great, and with Flow I think he really nailed it. Especially the dialog. It is not natural, at all, but it possesses a unique quality.


Yes, he's very much a pulp writer.

I find the overall concepts and stories are what draws me to his books, not so much his prose - though I would agree from what I've read so far that this is one of his better written books.

He's got a very non-nonsense style of writing. He writes to communicate the ideas and visions he's trying to communicate - nothing more, nothing less.

megladon8
02-13-2008, 01:23 AM
I am not prepared to declare this the greatest vampire book of all time. I know some that do. I won't even say it is a timeless genre classic. But what I will say should carry more weight, because it is without an ounce of hyperbole: I am Legend is a well-written, solid tale. It's a good book. I don't need a lot of adverbs to say this. It is a book with a one-track mind, and delivers a focused story of one man's quest for survival and knowledge. At the end of the day, I am happy I read it, and even with the amount of hype surrounding it, coupled with my heightened anticipation, I finished it with satisfaction. It's just a good book.


A great review, D, and I especially like this last paragraph.

As you know, I do consider it the best vampire book ever written, and I do consider it a timeless genre classic. As I've said before, it may be my favorite book.

But you communicate your opinion in a way that Matheson would write, I think - brief and to the point. Just like you said in your review, he doesn't pad things out. He tells the story and communicates many messages without having to turn the book into a 600 page epic.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the film.

Have you seen either of the other film adaptations of the story? There's he Vincent Price one (The Last Man on Earth), then there's the Charlton Heston one (The Omega Man).

The Price one is actually the most faithful to the book, if that's what you look for with book-to-screen adaptations. But I actually think the recent Will Smith film - while flawed, and the most unfaithful to the source material of the three - is the most effective movie adaptation.

D_Davis
02-13-2008, 01:25 AM
He's got a very non-nonsense style of writing. He writes to communicate the ideas and visions he's trying to communicate - nothing more, nothing less.

Right. Dick is the opposite of a stylist. He is not concerned with fancy sentence structure, or playing with the English language in highly creative ways. He just says things the best he can. And depending on the amounts of drugs he was on while writing, sometimes he says things well, and other times not so much.

But his ideas! Where in God's great heaven did he come up with these ideas? I mean, it's absolutely mind-boggling. I cannot fathom a brain that comes up with these ideas. Other authors I read, I see it. It's like, oh yeah, I see where they drew this or that from, I understand why they are saying what they are saying and why they are saying it in such a way. But with Dick? Hell no. What? A pot-healer? A guy that mends pots? The afterlife in a spray bottle? Drugs that translate the users into the bodies of Barbie dolls?

It's just crazy. But he conveys these ideas in ways that make sense. He illustrates them so that other people can see the things he sees. He's just incredible.

D_Davis
02-13-2008, 01:29 AM
A great review, D, and I especially like this last paragraph.

...

The Price one is actually the most faithful to the book, if that's what you look for with book-to-screen adaptations. But I actually think the recent Will Smith film - while flawed, and the most unfaithful to the source material of the three - is the most effective movie adaptation.

Thanks. It really is just a good book. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. To me, it's like meat and potatoes. I'll never say no to a well-cooked steak and a baked potato. I didn't need it to knock my socks off with some profound understanding of humanity. Matheson delivers an awesome tale, with solid writing, and does so in under 200 pages. I zipped through it, and I can easily see myself reading it again in the future. I definitely want to check out more of Matheson's stuff.

Thanks for encouraging me to read it. I appreciate it.

I have not seen any of the films from start to finish. I really want to see the Will Smith film. I can't remember the last time I've craved a DVD so bad.

megladon8
02-13-2008, 01:31 AM
It's just crazy. But he conveys these ideas in ways that make sense. He illustrates them so that other people can see the things he sees. He's just incredible.


Something I've appreciated in both of the books I've read previously (as well as the one I am reading now) is that he doesn't waste time trying to fill in gaps in the reader's mind with regards to the technology available in the stories or the means of transportation, etc.

Everything in the stories is just there, and he writes about them as if the reader lives in that world with him, and they should know what these things are.

This may sound like lazy/sloppy (or even pretentious) writing, but it's really not. Because everything that needs to be known by the reader is revealed throughout the story, while anything else is just inconsequential.

For example, in "The Crack in Space', much of the plot revolves around these guys who fix Jifi-scuttlers. We never really get a completely clear description or examination of what Jifi-scuttlers are, or how they work exactly. We get enough information to know that they're a means of transportation. That's it, that's all - because that's all we need to know. Anything else would just be filler, because it's really not pertinent to the story.

megladon8
02-13-2008, 01:34 AM
Thanks for encouraging me to read it. I appreciate it.

Pfft, it's no problem. I'm just glad you enjoyed it.

You single-handedly got me into authors like PKD, Theodore Sturgeon, Joe R. Lansdale, etc. The least I could do was recommend you a single book :)



I have not seen any of the films from start to finish. I really want to see the Will Smith film. I can't remember the last time I've craved a DVD so bad.

Not sure if you saw my later posts in the I Am Legend thread in GFD - if you did and replied, I apologize, as you know my memory isn't too great - but the 2-disc DVD coming out in March contains both the theatrical version, and the original cut with the original "sad" ending.

The ending was changed at the last minute (literally - like 3 or 4 weeks before the film was released, and they had to do hectic reshoots) due to test audiences thinking the ending was too much of a downer.

Now, apparently the original ending was nothing like the book's ending. But, neither is the theatrical. So I am just interested in seeing the difference, because the ending I saw in theatres really didn't do it for me at all.

D_Davis
02-13-2008, 01:39 AM
This may sound like lazy/sloppy (or even pretentious) writing, but it's really not. Because everything that needs to be known by the reader is revealed throughout the story, while anything else is just inconsequential.

For example, in "The Crack in Space', much of the plot revolves around these guys who fix Jifi-scuttlers. We never really get a completely clear description or examination of what Jifi-scuttlers are, or how they work exactly. We get enough information to know that they're a means of transportation. That's it, that's all - because that's all we need to know. Anything else would just be filler, because it's really not pertinent to the story.

Right - it's not lazy at all. Too many present day authors are overly concerned with "world-building." Fuck world building. If it doesn't pertain to the narrative, don't spend time telling me what it is.

I don't care what a Jifi-scuttler is. Really, I don't. Don't tell me what they are, who makes them, what kind of MPG they get, blah, blah, blah.

Don't tell me anything.

Show me. Show me what they do. Two sentences of active showing conveys more than two pages of passive telling.

Such is the bane of modern publishing, and modern genre fans. They want 600-page bloated epics, and, what's more, they want them as part of a 12-volume bloated series.

If you have something long to say, so be it, but it is rare that I read something really long and think, wow, that really needed to length. Usually I wind up mentally ripping out entire chapters and cursing the author for not delivering a concise narrative worth reading.

D_Davis
02-13-2008, 01:40 AM
Not sure if you saw my later posts in the I Am Legend thread in GFD - if you did and replied, I apologize, as you know my memory isn't too great - but the 2-disc DVD coming out in March contains both the theatrical version, and the original cut with the original "sad" ending.


oh yeah - I am definitely getting the 2-disc DVD.

megladon8
02-13-2008, 01:44 AM
Such is the bane of modern publishing, and modern genre fans. They want 600-page bloated epics, and, what's more, they want them as part of a 12-volume bloated series.

If you have something long to say, so be it, but it is rare that I read something really long and think, wow, that really needed to length. Usually I wind up mentally ripping out entire chapters and cursing the author for not delivering a concise narrative worth reading.


Even from just the writing standpoint - I have no idea how someone like Robert Jordan is still able to write the "Wheel of Time" books.

They're all mammoths (or at the very least, quite long), and there's what, 11 or 12 of them?

As a writer, I find I get bored with my ideas very quickly, or just run out of steam and have nothing left to say. So I keep things brief, often writing stories that aren't much more than 15-20 pages. I get in, write what I want to say to a level where I'm satisfied that the reader will understand the concept, then get out.

D_Davis
02-13-2008, 01:50 AM
I wouldn't read the Wheel of Time books if they were the last books on Earth. Ugh.

I can barely bring myself to get excited about the new King book, and I like the dude's work.

But 600+ pages to tell a horror story, or 15,000 pages to remake (poorly) the Lord of the Rings and Gormenghast? Please.

D_Davis
02-13-2008, 05:03 AM
Finished Dark Harvest, and next up is Gene Wolfe's The Fifth Head of Cerberus.

"All novels are fantasies. Some are more honest about it."

-- Gene Wolfe

This will be my first experience with Wolfe.

D_Davis
02-13-2008, 02:20 PM
I have decided to read Simak's City rather than Wolfe's book. I started the Wolfe book, but I am just not in the mood for this kind of dense, flowery prose right now. Perhaps another time.

I guess my undying love for dogs won me over.

monolith94
02-14-2008, 02:12 PM
I don't care what a Jifi-scuttler is. Really, I don't. Don't tell me what they are, who makes them, what kind of MPG they get, blah, blah, blah.

Don't tell me anything.


The prologue of The Stars My Destination.

D_Davis
02-14-2008, 02:33 PM
The prologue of The Stars My Destination.

I actually have a version of this that I ripped the prologue out of. It's just 5 pages of infodump, and it is not needed at all.

I am not going to dislike a sci-fi book for a bit of the old infodump, they are almost all partially guilty, but I do prefer it on the light side.

With Stars, after the prologue, Bester just lets it rip, and gives all we need to know in context to the narrative. It almost feels like he was asked to write the prologue by the publishers, to sort of ease people into the book.

megladon8
02-15-2008, 01:50 AM
Finished "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said". It was very good and engaging throughout, though not quite as great as "The Crack in Space", which is (as of now, having read three books by the man) my favorite of PKD's work.

I kind of called the "twist" near the end about 1/4 of the way through the book, but that the book continues after the twist to offer philosophical and profound insight into the world in the book and, simultaneously, our own world was impressive. So often stories (whether they be books or movies) feel like the entire thing is dependant on the twist, and that's all it really had to offer - everything else is just filler. I'm glad that's not how this book played out.

Seeing Jason evolve and change and become a little more empathetic to his fellow man was really well done.

D_Davis
02-15-2008, 01:56 AM
Yeah, Dick rarely relies on twists. One his characters discover "the Matrix," he just keeps on peeling away the layers and lathering on the mystery.

I wish I remembered more about Flow..., so I could discuss it more. I remember feeling like the ending was kind of jarring, but not detrimental to the narrative.

And I really liked the Jason's growth as character. He comes alive.

megladon8
02-15-2008, 02:12 AM
Yeah, Dick rarely relies on twists. One his characters discover "the Matrix," he just keeps on peeling away the layers and lathering on the mystery.

I wish I remembered more about Flow..., so I could discuss it more. I remember feeling like the ending was kind of jarring, but not detrimental to the narrative.

And I really liked the Jason's growth as character. He comes alive.


I actually found much of it very similar to ideas proposed by The Matrix, so I'm glad you brought that up.

I also loved that, like we were talking about a day or so ago, Dick doesn't waste time discussing or extrapolating upon details that don't matter to the plot. We know that Jason is a "six", and that they are some sort of genetically enhanced human, but beyond that there's no "Genesis" of the project or chapters devoted entirely to Jason's past. He is a six. He is perceived as "better" than the average Joe. That's all we really need to know to understand the story, and he leaves it at that.

I very much saw Jason as a Cary Grant type. He is devilishly handsome, suave, classy, incredibly talented - in the words of Mimi Rogers from Austin Powers, "women want him, and men want to be him". He starts the story as an incredibly arrogant and privileged man, who suddenly has everything taken away from him and must see what it's like to live as a nobody (and in the case of the story, he literally becomes nobody).

D_Davis
02-15-2008, 02:40 AM
I very much saw Jason as a Cary Grant type. He is devilishly handsome, suave, classy, incredibly talented

Man, that's freakin' crazy. I totally imagined Cary Grant as well. D.S. and I both read this at the same time, and we were talking about how cool it would have been to see Hitchcock make it into a film starring Grant.

Actually, this book reminds me a lot of Vertigo.

megladon8
02-15-2008, 04:18 AM
Man, that's freakin' crazy. I totally imagined Cary Grant as well. D.S. and I both read this at the same time, and we were talking about how cool it would have been to see Hitchcock make it into a film starring Grant.

Actually, this book reminds me a lot of Vertigo.


That is weird.

Great minds think alike! (That's the second time I've said that in two days...)

I totally pictured Jason as Cary Grant circa North By Northwest - beginning to show his age slightly, but still ridiculously handsome and could pass for younger than he was.

megladon8
02-15-2008, 05:18 AM
"The Crack in Space" by Philip K. Dick

a review by Braden Adam


Upwards of 100 million people lay in cryo-sleep due to mass overpopulation. Racism is rampant, with whites still seeing themselves as the “superior” race, even though they are now the minority. America is preparing to potentially have their first black (or “col”) president. Space is home to off-world brothels run by human beings with serious physical mutations. And society is just as mucked up as always. This is the world of the future which Philip K. Dick envisions in “The Crack in Space”, a suitably philosophical venture from the author known for his mind-bending, reality-altering ideas. But while elements of the story are outlandish and fantastic, much of it is grounded in both the reality of the time it was written and published (the mid-1960's), and in our time.

Of course the most direct parallel to our time is the American presidential election, where candidate Jim Briskin is having trouble appealing to both whites and “cols” (anyone non-white), since he himself is a black man. So obviously with Barack Obama in the running this year for president, the book has even more relevance. But despite current events in the world, the themes are timeless, and represent problems that won’t go away regardless of who is president. What do we do when we reach that breaking point where we just cannot fit any more people in the world? Where will we go? What if we never develop technology to terraform other worlds? Are we inherently doomed to extinction because of our own pride and inability to sustain natural resources? The book presents the implications of over population on numerous levels - social, political, ecological, economical, even sexual. But instead of simply putting the issues in front of the reader and leaving it at that, it asks - no, demands - that some thought be put into this. When the world is overpopulated, what do we do about young couples who desperately want to have children? Do we tell them no? Do we push the option of abortion on them? Do we simply let them have their child, even though they’ll end up being cryogenically frozen anyways?

It’s these issues that elevate a book like “The Crack in Space” above that oh-so-rampant misconception that science fiction (especially in literature) consists of busty women fighting lizard kings with laser pistols on aliens worlds where everything is unnervingly phallic in shape. To me stories like that have always been more in the vein of fantasy. That is not to say that they are lesser works compared to true science fiction, they’re just different and have been mislabeled. True science fiction examines concepts and ideas of a socio-political and philosophical nature, and aren’t all about alien goo and boobs - though these can still be present. Now, I don’t pretend to be an authority on the subject of science fiction. In fact, it’s only been over the past couple of years that I’ve really taken an interest in science fiction literature, and come to understand how much the genre has to offer. But I feel I’ve explored enough to say definitively that Philip K. Dick is one of the greatest idea men to have ever lived, and his ability to communicate those ideas effectively in solid, interesting, and very entertaining books really says a lot about the man’s talent and grasp of the written word.

There are elements of “The Crack in Space” which will seem familiar even to those who have only seen films based on Dick’s work. The space-age brothel orbiting Earth and run by a pair of siamese twins seems like something which could have been lifted right out of the seedy underworld of Total Recall’s Mars colony.

But I must digress, and admit that it has taken me well over two weeks to write this review. While some of that may be laziness on my part, it’s mostly due to the fact that this is just such a profound work. It has so many incredible concepts - to have even one of these ideas, I think I’d feel like I was some sort of genius. But that Philip K. Dick filled dozens of novels with these ideas relating to philosophy, religion, existentialism and humanity is a true testament to his genius. He also has a very unique style, and I would almost call it an “anti-style” mentality towards writing. When describing futuristic technology and the ways of the worlds he creates, he gives the bare minimum of information required for the reader to understand the plot. For example, in “The Crack in Space”, much of it revolves around men who repair “Jifi-scuttlers”. You may be asking what exactly a “Jifi-scuttler” is, and I can honestly say I don’t clearly know, and I’ve read the book. Is this a shortcoming? Not at all - in fact it’s one of the greatest strengths of the book. Dick doesn’t waste time with details that, in the end, really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. A “Jifi-scuttler” is a futuristic means of transporation, and it somehow involves tubes - that’s all we really know, and all we really need to know to grasp the plot.

In reading several reviews for “The Crack in Space”, I was surprised to find that this is actually considered a middle-to-lesser tier Dick novel. While I am not yet well versed in the man’s work, I must say that I don’t understand this - either I got more out of it than a lot of others, or I am in for a real treat when I further explore the author’s works. As it stands, I feel confident in saying this is one of the best pieces of science fiction literature I have ever experienced - I rank it among “Ender’s Game” and Robert Silverberg’s “Son of Man”.

D_Davis
02-15-2008, 03:43 PM
In reading several reviews for “The Crack in Space”, I was surprised to find that this is actually considered a middle-to-lesser tier Dick novel. While I am not yet well versed in the man’s work, I must say that I don’t understand this - either I got more out of it than a lot of others, or I am in for a real treat when I further explore the author’s works. As it stands, I feel confident in saying this is one of the best pieces of science fiction literature I have ever experienced - I rank it among “Ender’s Game” and Robert Silverberg’s “Son of Man”.

Nice review meg. I've had this same situation happen to me on a number of occasions. Some of Dick's books that I find marvelous are actually considered middling efforts to many, and a couple of books I flat out loath are considered great.

You are right though - I often have a hard time writing about Dick's books because I just never know where to start and when to stop. He packs so many ideas into each novel that one could spend an equal length dissecting them.

monolith94
02-15-2008, 04:49 PM
I actually have a version of this that I ripped the prologue out of. It's just 5 pages of infodump, and it is not needed at all.

I am not going to dislike a sci-fi book for a bit of the old infodump, they are almost all partially guilty, but I do prefer it on the light side.

With Stars, after the prologue, Bester just lets it rip, and gives all we need to know in context to the narrative. It almost feels like he was asked to write the prologue by the publishers, to sort of ease people into the book.

That seems rather brash.

I think that, to use your term "infodump", there's infodump done well, and infodump done not so well. Another useful example would be the epilogue of Flow My Tears... There's "telling" that's heavyhanded, and not well crafter, and then there's telling that is more interesting. I actually like the prologue to "The Stars" not necessarily because it ties in stylistically with the main story, but just because the main ideas in it are interesting. I can sympathize with you, though.

Also, D Davis, you HAVE to read Apuleius' The Golden Ass. I just have to know what you would think of that book.

D_Davis
02-15-2008, 05:01 PM
I think that, to use your term "infodump", there's infodump done well, and infodump done not so well. Another useful example would be the epilogue of Flow My Tears... There's "telling" that's heavyhanded, and not well crafter, and then there's telling that is more interesting. I actually like the prologue to "The Stars" not necessarily because it ties in stylistically with the main story, but just because the main ideas in it are interesting. I can sympathize with you, though.

Also, D Davis, you HAVE to read Apuleius' The Golden Ass. I just have to know what you would think of that book.

I totally agree with your points, but I think the infodump in the prologue to Stars is not done well. It's superfluous to the narrative, like it was written as an after thought. Knowing that Jaunting was named after a dude named Jaunt doesn't really have any baring on the story. This is especially apparent when compared to how brilliantly Bester handles the infodump during the rest of the book. I really wouldn't be surprised to find that it was written at the bequest of the publishers when it was first published as a book.

Dick also tends to handle his infodump well - in context to the narrative or in small enough chunks so that it does not become cumbersome. Although, I don't remember the epilogue to Flow..., I'll have to read it again to see.

Often times in sci-fi, good infodump is handled in dialog.

The most brilliant uses of infodump I've encountered are in Joe Haldeman's Mindbridge and Pohl's Gatewat. inserted into the narratives a bits and pieces of scholarly lectures, graphs, charts, fictional articles from peer reviewed journals, want and personal ads, and diary entries. It's really quite cool, especially in the hands of Haldeman.

Someone who rarely handles it well is Ursula K. LeGuin. She often has long, plodding sequences and entire chapters devoted to it.

I have not read the Golden Ass, I will look into it though. Thanks for the rec!

D_Davis
02-15-2008, 05:17 PM
I will give you this, I love the opening sentence in the Stars prologue. But I imagine how much more powerful it would be directly proceeding the opening sentence to the first chapter, or some slight variation of the two.

megladon8
02-15-2008, 05:36 PM
Nice review meg. I've had this same situation happen to me on a number of occasions. Some of Dick's books that I find marvelous are actually considered middling efforts to many, and a couple of books I flat out loath are considered great.

You are right though - I often have a hard time writing about Dick's books because I just never know where to start and when to stop. He packs so many ideas into each novel that one could spend an equal length dissecting them.


Thanks!

I really did find it hard to write the review, because I found myself wanting to talk about every idea I encountered in the book - but at the same time, I didn't want to spoil anything for future readers.

Needless to say, I loved it. I hope you love it too.

D_Davis
02-16-2008, 12:49 AM
The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester

Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation.
Deep space is my dwelling place,
The stars my destination.

This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living, and hard dying...but nobody thought so.

The Stars My Destination is punk-effing-rock. It's a primal scream of prose, written with verve, skill, style, and a desire to tear down established norms - it's controlled insanity. It gives the big middle finger to the science fiction genre, punches it in the face, curb stomps it, steals its car and drives away with its girlfriend.

I cannot imagine having read this upon it initial publication in 1956; imagine Mozart hearing Minor Threat or Voivod - major head explosion. It shames many of its contemporaries, makes them look dated and small, and it continues to do so now, fifty-two years later. Samual R. Delany said that it is “considered by many to be the single greatest SF novel written,” and I wouldn't disagree with anyone making this proclamation.

Alfred Bester tells us the story of Gully Foyle, one of the most memorable protagonists I've ever encountered. This dude is a bad-ass: an amoral anti-hero hell-bent on revenge and the destruction of the establishment. He is THE anti-hero, all others cower in his presence: “I am vengeance, I am the night, I am Batman,” ha! It is to laugh. The catalyst for his plight, his anger, his quest of passion, and his ultimate growth into a moral being is a simple one; in a word, he was betrayed.

Foyle is a powerful character, a sledgehammer of personality, one that dominates the entire narrative. He is an imposing force; a foreboding storm cloud lurking over the heads of those who would stop him; a man driven by an idiot's determination and an animalistic urge. He is the definition of tenacious, he spits in the face of the absurd society in which he lives and laughs while walking away.

So much of what we consider modern “science fiction,” or “cyberpunk” can be traced back to Bester's novel, and even if he didn't invent these conventions, he did perfect their molds.

A partial checklist of ass-kicking found within:

* Men augmented with cybernetics to enhance their physical and mental abilities.

* Bullet-time, and martial arts.

* A world overrun with monstrous conglomerates, broken up into clans of ruling families and controlled by megalomaniac businessmen.

* Tribes of techno-bohemians living on asteroids where they brand each other with garish tattoos - a cult of savage scientists.

* People travel by “jaunting,” a kind of personal teleportation. A jaunt here, a jaunt there, a meeting on the West Coast at 9 a.m., a jaunt to the East Coast for an early lunch, followed by a jaunt back home thousands of miles away. It's a personal information super highway.

* Radioactive body guards.

* Pontificating robots.

* Men and woman who have deprived themselves of all senses in hopes of enlightenment.

* A telekinetic, seventy-year old child.

...And the list could just go on. Bester glances at as many ideas in this one book as some authors cherish during their lifetimes. That he handles it all with only a trace of the old infodump is his true genius. It's couldn't be more jam-packed with ideas, trust me, I think this was scientifically proven.

While I personally like The Demolished Man more, The Stars My Destination possesses an edge sharp enough to slice through an atom. It's an unrelenting trek through the stars, and beyond, spearheaded by a man bursting with unbelievable energy and emotion. With these two novels, Alfred Bester helped to bridge the gaps between the pulps and the new wave; he was at the vanguard of literary science fiction, genre fiction that made outsiders pay attention.

The Stars My Destination benefits from this transitional period. It possesses a rip-roaring, hardboiled adventure yarn and probes deep into more experimental territories with the use of typographical manipulation and a nearly post-modern attitude. What's most astonishing is how dangerous it still is. This is a daring book, one that takes chances, and it is bolstered by its unwillingness to conform. For all that is said about the cyberpunk sub-genre, I find it a little telling that its most brave, interesting, and punk-rock example was written three decades before the term was even coined.

D_Davis
02-17-2008, 02:23 PM
Finished Simak's City. It is very good. It's a melancholy examination of the Earth's and mankind's final days, set in the distant future (the book covers about 15,000 years of time), told in the form of legend, myth, and parable by an unknown Dog scholar. While I can see some modern readers, with their overly cynical and sarcastic attitudes, thinking this is too coy, quaint, and pastoral, I found it moving and engaging.

Full review to come...

Up next...

The Cosmic Puppets - Philip K. Dick

Winston*
02-17-2008, 06:08 PM
The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester


I read this last week. It was awesome.

D_Davis
02-17-2008, 06:29 PM
I read this last week. It was awesome.


Yes it is. Bester was pretty damn amazing.

Have you read any of his short stories?




City - Clifford D. Simak

Clifford D. Simak's City presents a wistful remembrance of a future history told from the distant future by the unlikely inheritors of the Earth: a new species of highly evolved canine and their robot companions. The novel is comprised of nine short stories, each being a legend detailing humankind's exodus from the cities to the country, and from the Earth to the stars. The legends of humankind are conveyed through the writings of an unknown scholar, and possess a melancholy examination of our end time.

Simak's book is totally of its time, and read through today's eyes it can seem outdated and anachronistic. Some of the science is a bit off, and the entire premise might be seen as overly quaint, coy, and pastoral for some modern readers. However, Simak pulls everything together, and through his deceptively simple prose he constructs a wondrous story that is part Martian Chronicles, part Norman Rockwell, part cautionary tale, and all together effective. It is vintage golden-age science fiction, and because there is no hard-science pretense, Simak is clearly dealing with myth and legend, it is not hindered by its old fashioned style - on the contrary, it is bolstered by it.

Reading City as akin to listening to a great tale told by your grandpa, while sitting around the campfire with a cup of hot chocolate in hand. It plays upon the nostalgia for all things Americana. It is not only of its time, but it is also a uniquely American novel. The stories are a bit presumptuous in that they only deal with fate of American society and assume that the rest of the world shared a similar fate. While some may see this as a fault, I see it as simply a product of a golden rule in fiction: write what you know. Simak knew America. He was a science-fiction equivalent of John Steinbeck, or William Saroyan, and he used his deep rooted knowledge of small town American life to his benefit.

Things do start off slow, and the first two stories, “City” and “Huddling Place” are a tad bit dull and uninteresting. They are not bad, they just lack a sense of awe and wonder. The “editor's” notes for each are interesting though, and they hint at something far greater to come. Because each subsequent legend builds upon these two, it is understandable that a foundation needed to be built. These stories introduce the Webster family, the main group of human characters, and their robot servant Jenkins, who plays a major role in future developments. We also learn of mankind's shifting perspective on the city's usefulness during these introductory chapters.

The third story, “Census” is where things really start to get interesting. This is the first story to feature one of the talking dogs, a canine named Nathanial. It deals with humanity's exodus away from the now dilapidated cities, and the remaining government's futile efforts to keep tabs on them. The third story also introduces the mutants - humans who have forged a new branch in their own biological and societal evolutionary paths. They have done so by following the teachings of a Martian philosophy, a way of thinking that allows people to fully know and understand other people. Imagine being able to truly know your brothers and sisters - what they are actually thinking and feeling - and how this would impact the way you lived your life.

As the stories progress, they become more interesting, more fascinating, and more packed with ideas and incredible vistas. Simak touches upon a multitude of topics here, and does so with a casual nonchalance. His pastoral prose is used to great effect; his form and function share a symbiotic relationship. Nestled within these stories are topics such as the absurdity of weapons and war, the genesis of new religions and superstitions, a prophetic glimpse at an Internet-like construct, and examinations of parallel universes, paranormal activity, psychic abilities, and alien lifeforms. Simak presents these ideas with a soft touch, rather than a pounding fist upon a pulpit.

Within City, Simak expertly creates a series of future myths, legends, and parables. It is easy to see why and how these legends have impacted the future inheritors of the Earth. The narrative spans almost 20,000 years in time, but things never feel jarring or out of context with one another. Each story is used to convey a very specific set of ideas, and when read in conjunction with the others, it becomes clear that Simak chose his subjects carefully and precisely. While not quite up to the same level as Way Station, City offers another incredible glimpse into the mind of a great American science fiction author, one whose pastoral tone and admiration for small town America afforded a unique and satisfying voice.

Winston*
02-17-2008, 07:37 PM
Yes it is. Bester was pretty damn amazing.

Have you read any of his short stories?



Have not. I have a copy of The Demolished Man I borrowed off my father ages ago and never got around to, so I'll probably read that pretty soon.

megladon8
02-17-2008, 10:41 PM
Great review as usual, D. I especially liked the paragraph where you equate Simak to a science fiction John Steinbeck. That really piqued my interest - to read science fiction that occurs within small town America. It sounds like a nice, refreshing change from a lot of science fiction which involves intergalactic incidents and events which shake the whole world, and looks at them from the point of view of the whole world - a sort of "God's eye view". To have that smaller perspective would be an interesting way to shake things up.

I have begun reading "Prodigy" by Dave Kalstein. It's an interesting idea (albeit not too original, but who cares?) about a school which raises and trains kids to be literally "perfect" in every way. The boys are practically Spartans - solid muscle, perfectly toned, incredibly intelligent, highest endurance possible, etc. The women are big-breasted blondes with strength, agility and intelligence to match (possibly even exceed) the boys. These children are so brilliant, they have cured AIDS and cancer. But, of course, something goes wrong (as it always does...I mean if it didn't, we wouldn't have much of a book, would we?).

Shades of "Ender's Game". Reviews liken it to a science fiction version of "The Catcher in the Rye" - though I wouldn't be surprised if this is overselling it quite a bit.