what’s good, squad? the latest mutations from Dicktopia were straight up insane! Dick was on conceptual fire, dishing out two sick new evolutionary dewhat’s good, squad? the latest mutations from Dicktopia were straight up insane! Dick was on conceptual fire, dishing out two sick new evolutionary dead ends: the psychic Unusuals and the brainiac New Men. they rule a brave new world full of Undermen like you and me, all of us with nothing to do except watch tv, take our tests, take our pills, punch the clock, follow the orders of New Men & Unusuals... and wait for the people to rise up! no cap, the regime change will be lit, especially when the CEO of This Ain't It returns from Frolix 8 with a dank alien who will totally run the table. fam, it's time for us all to glo up and finally take that W!
I wanted this book to be off the chain but it turned out to be mid. concepts were good but I was shook when I realized that the book wouldn't hit different. too much cringe in the first third, too much yadda yadda in the middle third, but finally the revolution came to slay. and folx, it was savage. all those out of pocket New Men and extra Unusuals may have brought the drama but they just weren't ready to catch hands. they can take several seats. ...more
the world has stopped spinning in the far far future and so one side is lightside and one side is darkside and man has devolved into little green aborthe world has stopped spinning in the far far future and so one side is lightside and one side is darkside and man has devolved into little green aboriginals who cherish their little horny men and are led by their little fierce women. Aldiss is a boundary-pushing writer and his new wave bonafides means he can write however he wants to write, he'll do what he wants to do. the world is a hothouse of seething angry vegetation, predatory plants that fly and sting and capture and kill, leviathan plants that sail like airwhales from earth to moon and back again and like giant spiders spin webs to connect the two places and like giant gourds can nourish the travelers that hide within. Aldiss is a creative writer and his imagination is as fecund and overripe as his lush and bizarre world and he just never stops with the creatures they keep coming and coming and coming. this world is in battle with itself, life against life, vegetable and animal alike, it's a frenzy of stalking and eating and killing and dying and it's all violent, all the time, here at the end of the world. Aldiss wrote this as five separate novelettes so there are five fairly separate adventures that don't really flow into each other but who needs flow, the narrative stops and starts and does what it wants to do, just like the author. the world is circumnavigated by the book's protagonist, a stubborn green rather unlikeable 10-year-old who knows how to kill and how to mate and how to look forward and who spends half the book with a creepy morel fungus growing into his head and shoulders that talks to him and expands his mind and cruelly manipuates him and this fungus is kinda the most sympathetic character in the book, and that was definitely a first for me. Aldiss is an author who does things first....more
into the old man's anus the micronaut shall travel, a little man made littler by the magic power of Science, or Science Fiction. the micronaut shall cinto the old man's anus the micronaut shall travel, a little man made littler by the magic power of Science, or Science Fiction. the micronaut shall cut away the blossoms and tendrils of cancer from the throbbing rectal walls, his wee tool scooping out disease. easy to scoop away the cancer in a man; less easy to scoop away the cancer in a society. the cancerous society is composed of ghettoized lower classes and safely ensconced upper classes: what's new? not much, says the cynic aware of demarcations and the exchange of money for services and dignity for money. what else is new? the writing is new, or was new, the New Wave, the vanguard. the writing is brazen and cheeky, the author on a mad lark as he exorcises his demons, chief among them that male bugaboo called Impotence. poor men and their fears of a limp dick! the poor limp-dicked little micronaut shall regain his true but still smallish size, a man little in stature but now suddenly big in thought: he shall murder this evil old man - no longer prey to cancer, but still cancerous!
alas, if only he had done so, much earlier, he may have rescued both himself and myself, the former from his tiny life, the latter from this book and the eventual tedium it inspired. challenging, even exciting prose can only do so much when ideas are predictable, micro in scope. apparently I am a macronaut, disinterested in such small things, unable to travel through the book's too-tight sphincter and emerge pleased by the effort.
maybe some kindly librarian can switch out this proudly macro image for the sad little micro version of the same, within the original paperback's profile? hint, hint...more
Katherine Mortenhoe is nothing special. She's like everyone else: she was born, she's misunderstood, she's disappointed, she will die - and sooner thaKatherine Mortenhoe is nothing special. She's like everyone else: she was born, she's misunderstood, she's disappointed, she will die - and sooner than she'd hoped. She is a private person who lives in the public eye, a public composed of friends and not-friends and strangers who are only barely seeing her and hearing her, who project who they think she is upon her. Her motives and her actions are frequently misunderstood, much like everyone else. She is vaguely disappointed with herself, but she probably couldn't articulate exactly why, much like everyone else. Katherine Mortenhoe is nothing special, except for one thing: she will have her last days recorded and broadcast, so that all the world can ooh and aah at the sentimental tragedy of it all.
When is Science Fiction not Science Fiction? When it's New Wave Science Fiction of course! The science fictional trappings of this novel are simply that: trappings. Although this novel is quite definitively set in a future world, it may as well have been set in 1973, when it was first written, or in the right now of 2019. Everything in this book was relevant then as it is relevant now. From the personal made public and lack of privacy in general to medical duplicity to cookie cutter novels designed to fit their audience's needs to the greedy interest that reality tv programming has in viewing and judging personal lives while simultaneously trying to transform and package three-dimensional human beings and their complicated lives into easily accessible types and smoothly digestible narratives.
Compton is a strong writer, switching between third and first person, sometimes quite sneakily and without warning, mid-chapter. He doesn't engage in any hand-holding: the reader must figure out this world on their own with no explanatory passages to help them along. Nor does he make his characters easy to empathize with: he forces readers to get to know them over time, to slowly understand them, until empathy is finally reached.
I loved this book! It is not a book that particularly wants to be loved, what with its cold critique of modern society and its very frequent examples of toxic, judgmental human pettiness and its portrait of a media and a medical world that not only don't care for you on a human level but are also all too willing to exploit and draw out your pain if they can make a few bucks off of you. The book would probably be very uncomfortable with my open declaration of love, so I will revise that to say: I really respected this book. It is not a cold book, despite its acidity and its scathing critiques.
The book gives you scattered but very moving reminders that there is decency and kindness in humanity, whether in the form of a colleague who should be considered a best friend (gay, of course) or an ex-husband who was the right person at the wrong time or an eccentric elderly stranger who will do what he can to help people in need. Key to the book's success is that it makes clear that both the ambitious young fellow who is predatorily recording Katherine Mortenhoe and, much more importantly, that Katherine herself are special. They deserve to be seen as special, treated as special. Their lives, their loves, their failings and their virtues, their ability to understand and connect with each other and with themselves, their dreams and the reality that they have to cope with are what makes them so. Everyone's lives makes this so.
“Everybody is special. Everybody. Everybody is a hero, a lover, a fool, a villain. Everybody. Everybody has their story to tell.” ― Alan Moore
oh the pretty city! a pastel dream, a symbol, a memento mori to the afternoon past; a vision held of that sunny afternoon, held in place like a butteroh the pretty city! a pastel dream, a symbol, a memento mori to the afternoon past; a vision held of that sunny afternoon, held in place like a butterfly in amber. the afternoon has passed but this pastel city lives on in its fragile fugue state, imagining a past that never can be again and forgetting itself, what it is and what it should be. our heroes fight the northern hordes and their fearful weapons to save this pretty pastel city. but should they? they fight for a dream, and all dreams are fleeting.
oh such pretty words! Harrison channels Jack Vance and his science fantasy The Dying Earth in this slim and enticing tale. the elegant prose, the terseness, the cynicism about the cyclical quality of human struggle. but he does not ape Vance; he is his own human. and so the pretty prose, the colors, the evanescence of it all, are suffused with a melancholy and dread quite unlike the moods of that author. this gorgeous book conjures Vance in all of his stylishness, but has made itself into something quite different.
oh you pretty things! warriors and a young queen: a poet, a dandy, a dwarf, an old man, an heiress. they speak poetry and sing songs while sharpening swords, they grumble and moan and battle and mourn, they fit themselves into giant metal contraptions, they fly to the rescue. these fearless characters, all of them heirs to a past that must be overcome. the future is a bright and shiny thing: there is no room there for poets and fanciful dreams of times long ago. if the past returns, it will return transformed. this is how a new world must begin; pretty pastel memories must be forgotten....more
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a mystery in space of How Did the Captain of the Venusian Expedition Die? is not the mystery in space
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the mystery in space is the mystery of the inner space
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the mystery of the confined madman and hopeful author and failed husband and tragic victim and master of projection and master of binary thinking and yet still somehow the master of accepting all probabilities all potentialities all things and possible murderer and time traveler and a lover both impotent and hyper-potent, the lone survivor, the unhappy astronaut Col. Harry Evans
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the mystery of the space between a man and a woman, a man and a man, a man and himself
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the mystery of sex, the banality of it, its constancy in the mind and its transformation of the body, its shaping of things into shapes shameful and quickly hidden away
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the mystery of a genre called New Wave Science Fiction, barely remembered, a genre that challenged its own genre and a genre that blazed bright and briefly and full of a strange stylized mockingly literary playfulness, a genre that pushes all sorts of buttons and pulls all kinds of levers, my mind moving in all directions, sparking and flashing, a constant smile on my lips at the ingenuity of it all
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as for the mystery in question, a sad Earthly answer: your wife no longer loves you, why is that why is that, perhaps a trip to Venus will solve this riddle, perhaps you can write a book, perhaps you can recreate reality, perhaps you can run away, perhaps things will be better then but probably not probability says no
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One of the theories of the new mystics was that all of space was merely a projection of the inner wastes of man and that space exploration therefore became merely another dull metaphor for internal exploration: up against Mars, Venus, Ceres or the moon the voyager was merely confronting one or another pyramid reared in his own damaged psyche. Under this theory, the rationalization for space exploration became preposterous. One would have been better off accepting from the beginning the internal truth of oneself or, failing that, seeking competent care in an institution where for relaxation cryptograms, hairgrayers, puzzles, and sexual biography would serve the essential purposes while keeping allotted time free for introspection and the consideration of inner space.
flawed but heroic space captain, on a mission that is part vengeance and part noble quest, assembles a disparate crew to fly through a nova. this is Sflawed but heroic space captain, on a mission that is part vengeance and part noble quest, assembles a disparate crew to fly through a nova. this is Samuel R. Delany so that synopsis just barely scratches the surface.
I'm going to copy & paste a post regarding this book that I just made in a group I moderate. hopefully the pasted post will eventually turn out to be notes for an actual review, but who knows, I'm whimsical. and lazy!
Delany's prose reminds me of a couple musicians I like, John Cage and John Zorn. Cage because they both create strange, shimmering beauty out of disparate parts that I wouldn't expect to find beautiful. Zorn because I usually have no idea what is going to come next, what one part will turn into, and what that will turn into next. the music analogy occurred to me fairly early because the futuristic music that the highly endearing character Mouse creates is central to the story.
is there hard science in this book? I am not a science guy, not remotely, and a lot of what Delany was describing flew right over my head. so much so that I couldn't tell if it was actual science or if it was Delany using science in a fantastical way.
one of the things I often notice when reading science fiction from earlier eras is how much these authors can pack into such a short number of pages. just a bit over 200 pages! and yet Delany successfully develops multiple characters, an entire future society, a revenge narrative, and much else in those pages. very, very impressive. such a small package but so much within.
loved the use of tarot cards. I think the only other science fiction I've read that had such heavy use was Piers Anthony's Tarot series. and now I'm a little embarrassed that I've mentioned Piers Anthony. but he had some good novels!
I'm a bit shaky on the Grail Quest within this novel. it appears central but at the same time its use was somewhat obscure to me. I have to think on that a little bit, maybe do some research.
one of the things I like about New Wave science fiction authors is just how literary they can get. I have no problem with straightforward 'genre prose' but I just really, really love the artistry of more experimental writers who don't handhold readers from point A to B and who treat their prose with a combination of playfulness and seriousness, like it's a fun challenge for them to write what they intend to be a fun challenge to read. reading Delany and others of his ilk is the opposite of a passive experience. it is the kind of a writing that hits many different parts of me at different times and in different ways. exciting prose! ...more
David Sumner has a problem: the world as he knows it is about to end. what's a brilliant young man and his equally brilliant family to do? why, brDavid Sumner has a problem: the world as he knows it is about to end. what's a brilliant young man and his equally brilliant family to do? why, bring back members of that extended family, store supplies, circle the wagons, and build a lab which will eventually help the Sumner family to repopulate the earth, of course. sounds like a good plan to me.
there's something about the 70s that I just really dig. many things, actually. besides the wonderfully hideous clothes and the wonderfully not-hideous moustaches and of course all of the brilliant movies, one of the things I like about that decade is the science fiction that came out of it. sci-fi that is confident mankind is headed for cataclysmic change any day now; sci-fi writers that came up with all sorts of ways that mankind can survive or transform or transcend or even just die. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is such a book. one of the very 70s things about this novel is its sweet but not saccharine attachment to nature... if you don't dig nature, you have a lot to learn man. there's a vagueness to that sentiment just as there is a vagueness to what exactly is causing the world to break down. and that vagueness is also pretty 70s. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is not the sort of novel that will spell things out for you. you either dig it or you don't dig it.
Molly of the Miriam Sisters has a problem: she went on an expedition to see what could be found out there, and she came back changed. she doesn't see things the same way. she should probably try to change back; she's making her duplicate sisters uneasy and her community deals with unease in fairly drastic ways. but she doesn't want to change. she's not sure why she is drawing these disturbing images or why she finds such new comfort in nature, in being by herself. but she likes it. she likes being an individual.
and that's another great thing about the 70s, in sci-fi and beyond: that interest in exploring the necessity of both individuality and community. Wilhelm does not paint this after-the-fall society in broad strokes so that the reader can easily hiss at it. there is a nurturing, loving vibe to this future community. people support their siblings automatically. sexuality is nonchalant. it is a community that cares for its citizens. well, in its own way. but of course in the end Wilhelm cherishes individuality and this community is shown to be deeply flawed. if this sounds like the novel may be some kind of didactic screed on individualism, well, it's not. Wilhelm is subtle. she is a lovely writer but she is also fine with making the reader a bit uncomfortable. Molly's "descent" into individuality is eerie and unnerving, haunting, as strange an experience for the reader as it is for this new and vaguely threatening Molly - no longer of the Miriam Sisters.
Mark has a problem: he is not like the lab-bred brothers & sisters, and they don't like that. the clones don't like this natural-born kid. but they need him, they need his skills, they need his bravery, they need his ability to understand nature and to be by himself. unfortunately, they don't actually know they need him and how badly they need individuals like him for their survival as a race. at one point Mark builds a snowman. the young clones don't understand it and they don't really see it - because it is a lone snowman, no lookalike snowmen surrounding it. so they pelt it with snowballs and tear down the monstrous lone thing.
I love how this kid is portrayed as an arrogant little asshole who mercilessly pranks his clone relatives, blithely uncaring of the genuine harm they can and often expressly want to do to him. assholes make the best heroes for me because I can often see myself in them. I like their flaws, their humanity; heroic heroes are often quite tedious in the end. the 70s had no problem with asshole heroes. but although Mark is quite a jerk, he has something his family members don't understand outside of their clone groupings: empathy. jerks who are empathetic know how and where to hit the hardest. and so Mark hits the clones hard, right where it hurts.
fuck the world and fuck the people in it. right? fuck 'em. you spend your life trying to do things, accomplish things, putting yourself out
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fuck the world and fuck the people in it. right? fuck 'em. you spend your life trying to do things, accomplish things, putting yourself out there. do people even remember those things? does the universe even care? you are just a cog in the great world-machine that doesn't even want to know you, that doesn't recognize the things you've done. who could ever want you, you are a useless part now that you are
you have many accomplishments, many great deeds. so why was that done to you, why are your insides on the outside, why are all the base emotions and fears and petty little anguishes out there on the surface, a formless cloud of contamination, making people sick to be around you. why should they fear those things? they have such things inside them too, a wounded and wounding toxic sickness of the soul. the hypocrites, they are all like you, full of
flee to your new home. a maze and a death-trap. just let those who drove you away come and try to get you, now that they need you. feh! let them try! let them come to your world-maze. let them come and let them die.
it is a book about a maze and the man in it. it is a book about three men. one bitter man on the inside. two men on the outside: one old and cynical and the other young and idealistic. it is a book about being a certain kind of man. different versions, different stages of the same sort of man: an explorer a change agent a man who makes things happen. it is about men who don't need women, or things, or ideas. it is a book about men who need to move forward and make their mark, maybe many marks. men whose accomplishments - and only their accomplishments - define them. what is a maze to such men? simply a place to go.
it is a stark book and it is a melancholy book and it is a thrilling book and it is a surprisingly affecting book. it is beautifully written; it is a pulpy adventure as well. philosophies and perilous missions; rage and sadness and idealism and cynicism; transformation and alienation. alien beings; alien humans. so many things. project your own ideas onto the book; its body is pleasingly formed and ready to be clothed with your own perspective. the man in the maze made the maze his home; he made of himself a maze as well.
severely damaged man and moderately damaged woman meet-cute within a futuristic sorta-kinda reality show produced by an aberrant emotional vampire.
Thoseverely damaged man and moderately damaged woman meet-cute within a futuristic sorta-kinda reality show produced by an aberrant emotional vampire.
Thorns reads like a retro version of modern day obsessions in its depiction of a quasi-celebrity couple forced into romance and despair by a repulsive producer catering to a greedy public. that the producer is a predatory being who feeds off of emotional pain created a special frisson for me, mainly because that's exactly how I imagine producers of various reality tv romances like The Bachelor to be. I admire how Silverberg avoids infodumping and instead turns up the jazzy Sci Fi New Wave stylings of his prose in the first section of the novel - it made figuring out the narrative a fun little challenge. and I love Thorns' thematic connectivity with the many other books by the author that explore alienation and transformation.
I did not particularly like how Silverberg envisioned his female protagonist. there wasn't parity between man and woman; it was particularly annoying when I realized that the woman was genuinely stupid and shallow. this shouldn't have surprised me because Silverberg has been rightfully accused of sexism in his many novels. he has a specifically 60s-70s version of sexism, one which does recognize women as independent sexual beings - and yay for that, of course - but still sidelines them in favor of more dynamic and interesting male characters. I get the feeling that Silverberg has positive feelings towards women - he's a chauvinist, not a misogynist - but that didn't make it any easier going down. angry and brilliant Minner is damaged due to being physically transformed into a monstrous being - and he's in terrible, ongoing pain because of that transformation; virginal wallflower Lona is damaged because she's unhappy that a hundred or so eggs were removed from her (consensually - and lucratively) and she'll never get to raise any of those children. it felt queasily reductive when I compared her problems to his.
anyway, I still liked Thorns. quite a bit. after the enjoyably bizarre first third, the novel settles down with our b-list celebrity couple touring various romantic spots on Earth and throughout the solar system. the various locales are drolly fascinating and Silverberg's evocative, almost Jack Vance-like descriptive powers are always a joy to experience. a bizarre and posh restaurant featuring unusual dishes; an arctic tour; a fairground on the Moon; a trip to Titan: all are superbly realized. just as enjoyable - in a squirmier way - was the descent of this fragile relationship into resentment, bitterness, and emotional warfare. plus the ending features sweet revenge, and I'm always a fan of that....more
synopsis: the Earth that is under the shadow of Satan, religion and government its twin rulers; the father who is not His father lies dreaming, of a singer; the mother who was a virgin is dead, assassinated; the Father who is God has lost the battle, driven from Earth; He who is the son of God, conceived on a planet far away, He who shall become God, fostered by elias, He who shall invade this Earth, a divine invasion, He who shall win the war, and destroy the Earth; She who shall tease and taunt and guide and lead Him astray, into the Secret Commonwealth, into a new reality, Her reality, or perhaps the reality. we are saved, God become merciful, His divine invasion transformed, hallelujah!
weiver: the script flipped he flipped the script Dick scripted a flip again, like VALIS, again, the story the novel, it's a play it's science fiction, it's not real. the real world is not science fiction, it's not a divine invasion, it's a bored and unhappily married man, now in love with a singer, straying from a wife who has realized she could do better. the man doesn't want a son, he doesn't care about God. not true! Dick makes it not true, the pink light that is VALIS knows it's not true. this is a cautionary tale, but for whom? a cautionary tale for God? God should be merciful, says Dick. don't be such a dick, God, says Dick, who loves God, as of course God loves Dick.
and so I finished the nightmare turned dream, glad for Earth and scared of Dick.
I/he looked in the mirror to find the face of God. We are all created in God's image, or so we've been taught, I/he thought. But I/he saw n
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I/he looked in the mirror to find the face of God. We are all created in God's image, or so we've been taught, I/he thought. But I/he saw no God there; instead there was fallibility, weakness, hypocrisy, despair, and longing. A desire and a need to fool oneself, to compartmentalize so that one part can hide from the other. Where is this so-called God, I/he thought. Perhaps God is disguised somehow, in the background... or camouflaged in the foreground, a Zebra hidden in plain sight.
I/he looked in the mirror a second time, and saw all of our selves - all of us throughout time, some weak and some strong, but most somewhere in-between. We looked at our reflections. Are we an aspect of God? But God doesn't die, and this body certainly will, I/he thought mournfully.
All of us looked in the mirror a third time; God looked back upon us. Information was sent; the message was received. That message: We are all one and so We will never truly die. God is not bound by space or time; God exists to unify. The Empire will fall; God's Kingdom shall triumph. God lives through all things, in all of the weak things and in all of the strong, in everything in-between; even in us, thought Us.
Samuel R. Delany: scifi master, queer black boundary-crosser, critic and outsider, beloved cult figure, college professor, poet, genius.
i had a hard tSamuel R. Delany: scifi master, queer black boundary-crosser, critic and outsider, beloved cult figure, college professor, poet, genius.
i had a hard time with this one at first, and gave up about a third of the way in. i didn't understand what was happening and i resented the novel - it confused and frustrated me. but then i rallied, mainly due to a flash of shame at thinking that i needed my novels to be spoon-fed to me, with traditional narratives, easy answers and easily digested themes, familiar characters, obvious points to be made, the kind of simplicity that makes a novel a pleasant vacation. that's not me! i want those vacations, but i also want challenging (and ultimately exhilarating) experiences. so i swallowed my boring desire to have things carefully explained to me, and jumped back in. i'm glad i did. The Einstein Intersection is a wonderful and mind-expanding book, well worth the effort a reader puts into it.
there is fun and intrigue in figuring out what is happening, so i will spoilerize most of my synopsis:
far, far, far in the extremely far future, village herder & musician Lobey goes on an Orpheus-like quest for his slain lover...
(view spoiler)[as the novel progresses, the reader comes to understand that the beings on this surprisingly verdant future-earth are aliens who have inherited human bodies. the humans themselves have left, or at least their consciousness have transcended to some great beyond, leaving their bodies and all of their works behind. these new humans must wrestle with genetics and the need to breed viable children, their original 3-gender existence, the human legacy itself - running the gamut from myths to music to old hollywood films to radiation - both positive and negative in impact, and their own mysterious potential. things are changing on this farflung earth: strange new abilities are developing and radically new ways of living must be learned; true understanding of their own natures must take place for progression to happen. (hide spoiler)]
...along the way he meets the very complicated badass Spider, the sweet and nonchalant prince-in-exile Greeneye, the chameleonic object of everyone's desire Dove, and Lobey's terrible nemesis, architect of his quest: the vicious, scheming, mocking, murderous little red-haired psychic child, Kid Death.
the novel is about identity and difference... music and pop culture... great potential and great change... death and un-death... love and hate... city vs. country... sex and procreation... the author's own story and his personal goals in writing... how myths can control history and how new myths can be made, old myths transformed... it is about a quest to conquer death and to understand the nature of life. Delany's writing takes the jazzy, loose-limbed, seemingly improvisational New Wave SciFi approach as a launching point... and so the language can take the form of flat and resolutely masculine commentary pitched straight down the middle, and then shift effortlessly into iridescent bubbles of delicate prose, blown from a child's toy. Lobey is an appealingly down-to-earth protagonist, a backwoods country hayseed abroad in both open spaces and treacherous city... and he is also a nearly unknowable being, clear in motive yet obscure and mysterious in his strange abilities and potential to change the world around him and perhaps the future itself. the novel manages to be so many things at different times, and sometimes all at once: sardonic, wise, nihilistic, hopeful, ambiguous, concrete... creepily inexplicable and perfectly rational. it is a marvelously unique experience....more
a physician in africa; a world of disease. decay takes strange shape! a move into the unknown; the inexplicable finds its form and renovates, reconfiga physician in africa; a world of disease. decay takes strange shape! a move into the unknown; the inexplicable finds its form and renovates, reconfigures: a new, dead life! figures in a landscape become one with that landscape... stylized characters form a comic tableau, fighting and fucking and dying, always dying... a journey up-river into the heart of an exterminating whiteness... leprosy and crystallization, two sides of one coin. this cartoon world ends - not with a bang - but with stasis; an alien landscape that will subsume us all. what is Self, what is Society, what are compassion & greed & ambition, what is Life itself, in the face of such things? our ultimate heritage - to be insects trapped in crystalline amber?...more
"Ahead lies only the irreversible long decline. For the first time we know there is nothing beyond ourselves."
when do you know that the book you've ju"Ahead lies only the irreversible long decline. For the first time we know there is nothing beyond ourselves."
when do you know that the book you've just read is one of your favorite books? that an author you've been reading is one of your favorite authors? probably a variety of factors come into play. for me, the love affair often begins when i realize that the author or book has a few specific attributes: genuine compassion and empathy for human beings combined with a dark and despairing view of the human condition itself; an imagination so fertile and original that it verges on nuts. James Tiptree Jr. and the stories contained in this collection have such traits. it's a beautiful thing when that kind of connection between reader and story happens. and when, on top of that, the author's personal story is both fascinating and moving... LOVE. if you know nothing about the author, look her up under her pen name or her real name, Alice Sheldon. a truly fascinating and complex individual.
Tiptree has been pegged as a feminist author, from the good ole days of the 70s, and is sometimes described as a so-called Angry Feminist. well, the shoe sorta fits: she is definitely angry! her stories about gender imbalance are filled with brutal men, disempowered women, and a barely simmering undercurrent of rage at the injustice of it all. i have absolutely no problem with this and i don't think being considered a "feminist" is remotely insulting. however, the idea that Tiptree writes primarily about the issues of women is not just limiting (similar to likewise limiting descriptions of Angela Carter or Margaret Atwood)... it is incorrect. Tiptree writes about gender, about change, about society, about life, about death - the whole kit & kaboodle. she is not a single-issue writer and her stories are overflowing with marvelous idea after marvelous idea - of which the relationship between the genders is just one of many concerns. she writes with passion, fierce conviction, and is possessed of a remarkable generosity of spirit towards her doomed characters and despairing situations. "despair"... that should probably be addressed. the stories in this collection are bleak and deeply tragic. don't look for happy endings when reading Tiptree! one of the more positive endings has its effervescent narrator joyfully accepting his slow death and consumption by his beloved life-partner; another has a pair of characters excitedly exit the dull, restrictive confines of earth, forever.
all of the stories contained within this collection are gems. some are beautifully polished and glitter with their brilliance. others are more rough-hewn, less pretty to the eye - but valuable nonetheless. each one is deeply intelligent; each one is a distillation and expansion of a particular thesis or set of ideas; each story is overflowing with wit, smarts, sadness, and life; each story stands completely on its own. here are some of my favorites:
(special thanks to BunWat for helping my wee little brain fully understand the ramifications of several of these stories.)
The Screwfly Solution: something insidious is turning men against women... Tiptree takes her basic idea and spins it in directions that are full of tension and slowly ratcheting unease... the mid-stream change in narrators is an ingenious decision.
The Girl Who Was Plugged In: a sad pop culture addict becomes a glorious celebrity & beautiful face of sinister corporate interests... a buzzing, dizzying use of slangy language and a dense narrative full of extreme emotional highs and lows.
The Women Men Don't See: are women a separate species? apparently only time and opportunity will tell... perhaps Tiptree's most famous tale, this story about the secret nature of women is warm, wise, deviously sardonic, and has one of the most nihilistically hopeful endings i've ever read.
Houston, Houston, Do You Read?: three astronauts are flung far into the future, to discover that the world has changed, possibly for the better - but for them, definitely for the worse... i loved the depiction of this futuristic society, in many ways a personal dream come true (minus, ahem, a few key aspects)... i smiled and laughed so much while reading this one. oh, the tragic fate of assholes!
With Delicate Mad Hands: a physically unattractive woman takes control of a ship to search for destiny and fulfill her most secret dreams... it should be mentioned that the highly sympathetic woman in question is a murderous psychopath... this novella is equal parts nuts 'n bolts thriller, xenographic study of a bizarre planet full of unusual (and unusually loveable) alien species, and psychological portrait of a disturbed and downtrodden woman... a rapturously annhilating mystery in space.
A Momentary Taste of Being: a suspenseful, well-detailed and richly characterized novella about a scout ship's search for a colony site for an overpopulated earth... featuring disturbing mind control, creepy incestuous undertones, a hyper-sexualized alien 'invasion', a terrifying transcendence... my favorite story in the collection.
We Who Stole the Dream: tonight the aliens revolt! against disgusting, oppressive humans, of course. HUMANS OUT OF THE GALAXY NOW!
Love Is the Plan the Plan is Death: a hopeful tale of a charmingly high-spirited, forward-thinking young lad learning about life, death, and love... slowly coming to understand that the increasing length of the cold seasons equals increasing danger... fighting against tradition and culture to protect his and his loved ones' future... it should also be noted that the endearing hero in question is a gigantic, savagely violent alien-spider-monster.
Slow Music: two of the final inhabitants of earth struggle to decide if they want to stay themselves and continue the human race, or transcend into the great beyond... a great twist ending... a mournful saga in miniature.
"A Mournful Saga in Miniature"... that phrase could also be used to describe each and every one of these glorious stories. i was enchanted by the despairing, empathetic tragedy and lightly percolating wit of the visions contained within this book. in many ways i am reminded of an equally dark and wonderful classic scifi writer - the ineffable Cordwainer Smith. two beautiful writers and two amazing human beings.
i love you, Alice Sheldon! and your stories, so full of dark yet wistful tragedy.
"The lutroid's nictitating membranes filmed his eyes. After a moment he said formally, 'You carry despair as your gift'."...more
Dying Inside is a sterling example of 70s New Wave science fiction. it is about a telepath whose powers are fading. dude is a miserable, depressive asDying Inside is a sterling example of 70s New Wave science fiction. it is about a telepath whose powers are fading. dude is a miserable, depressive asshole who whines endlessly about his life. the end.
wait a sec, maybe that sounds like a bad read to you? well my friend, let me tell you... throw that impression away! this is a marvelous book from beginning to end. it is thought-provoking, often delightful, often hard-edged, completely enjoyable. Silverberg is such a masterful writer and many times i had to stop and reread different passages to better enjoy the beauty of his prose and the intelligence of his ideas. that sharp wit! the story is never monotonous and always resonant. LOVED IT.
it is an episodic novel, moving freely from past to present and back again. we meet our not-so-loveable narrator David Selig, his child psychologist, his girlfriends, his sister and the rest of his family, and a fellow telepath. our loser-ish hero makes his marginal living ghost-writing papers for college students, so there are several anecdotes where we see inside a couple students' minds. our hero is an unrepentant jerkoff, so we also get to read his often excruciating views on women and blacks (his thoughts on black empowerment were particularly troubling). we are shown a couple of his essays, one on Kafka and the other on the Electra complex, and they are fairly interesting - as standalones and as commentary on the narrative itself. each chapter is its own separate, challenging, wonderful little experience. my favorite parts include: a dry and rather evil session with our child protagonist as he toys with an overly-literal child psychologist; an exceedingly creepy and effective 'bad trip' (i think we can safely assume that telepathy does not improve LSD); and best of all, a brilliant flashback to our lonely telepath's youth, as he relaxes in a field, moving through the perspectives of a bee, a fish, two kids getting laid in a forest, and a surprisingly spiritual old farmer.
of particular interest is the the novel's other telepath - the confident, capable, cheerfully guilt-free Nyquist. the chapters about the relationship between the two are particularly illuminating in illustrating how Selig's main problem is not so much his telepathy but his fear of openness, of genuine human connection. Selig's problems do not come from his gifts, but rather from his own neuroses. and so the narrative is basically an accounting of how Selig grows to understand his own issues and then tries to move past them.
in his many other fantasy & scifi novels, Silverberg has proven himself a visionary master of often hallucinatory prose. his ideas can be sublimely poetic, so ambiguous as to be almost intangible, so far-reaching that they can be a real challenge to digest. one of the really fun things about Dying Inside is seeing how Silverberg harnesses his talents for what is basically the prosaic, diary-like musings of a not-that-special guy with some very special powers. Dying Inside is bursting with creativity - as if the author is illustrating how stories can be told in ways that are new, fresh, effervescent. Selig is mordant, jumpy, neurotic and highly sexual, by turns cynical and empathetic, and... hilarious! his narration is often a real treat and the free-flowing, occasionally stream-of-conscious thoughts have a chatty, relaxed, loose-limbed kind of appeal that makes the novel smooth yet tangy going down. and it's not just the distinctive, nakedly honest narrative voice that makes this novel so appealing; many chapters practically overflow with playful, jazzy approaches to style and structure and there are plenty of sophisticated insights, delivered both broadly and in deadpan. Silverberg's generous imagination busts the seams of the narrative; the result is a refreshing tonic.
"Nyquist, pausing a moment to detect and isolate Selig's sense of uneasiness, mocked it gently... I think what really scares you is contact, any sort of contact. Right? Wrong, Selig said, but he had felt the point hit home. For five minutes more they monitored each other's minds..."
a version of this review is a part of a longer article on Robert Silverberg posted on Shelf Inflicted....more
i do agree with your point regarding morality and how folks aren't necessarily born with that. i guess i just disagree when it comes to traits or attri do agree with your point regarding morality and how folks aren't necessarily born with that. i guess i just disagree when it comes to traits or attributes, such as empathy. for example, a person can learn society's morals, come to believe in them and strive towards them, and so eventually become a moral or even moralistic person. but they can have all that and still not be an empathetic person - possibly because they never learned how to be empathetic, but also possibly because they weren't born with that attribute in particular....more
the following is a Reverse Exquisite Corpse Review, brought to you by the good folks atSci Fi Aficionados. _____________________
I first read Neuromancthe following is a Reverse Exquisite Corpse Review, brought to you by the good folks atSci Fi Aficionados. _____________________
I first read Neuromancer about 20 years ago. Writing with strokes instead of details is an interesting way to describe Gibson's writing. That's how I feel about some of the performance art I saw in my art school days. The strokes were far too numerous. I found it impossible to tell what was detail, what was colour, what was clue. I get bored with things being laid out to me, writers that paint words with strokes appeal to me more than writers who lay everything out. A writing style is like food, different people have different tastes. It's not that I don't like Neuromancer, just that it leaves me entirely cold. One of my professors said that if you are used to narrative writers such as Stephen King, you would have a particularly hard time with Gibson's writing style. I loved the imagery that opens up the novel, Neuromancer is one of those books that you have to reread to catch everything.
Just finished rereading Neuromancer, even better then I remembered. i'm curious if hollywood will go the Battle Royale route and keep all the graphic kid violence, or if they'll somehow soften it. It will be very interesting to see how they deal with the graphic violence when the movie comes out next year. I'll be reading the follow ups at some point.
I was just thinking the other day how kids in high school for the most part have always have had the world wide web around and as such, they're both a little "warmer" or "more human". It's like eating junk food.
I usually love books like Neuromancer, but it just didn't work for me. I don't get it. I think it's my mood. I do enjoy complex books but I think Neuromancer was just out of my reach. I would say a person of the current internet generation would have written the book coldly and less philosophically. I also had trouble understanding some of the goings in the novel, which is partly a result of my being slow, lol, but I think that Gibson is playing with perception on purpose and leaving some subtle hints along the way.
(view spoiler)[He was obviously mad and dangerous, especially since Molly found his daughter's body, and she killed him. When Molly encountered him, he had raped (?) and murdered one of his clone daughters (not 3Jane), and was in the middle of trying to commit suicide via pills and booze. Ashpool is crazy. Ashpool was incensed when he found out because he likes the status quo, and strangled her. It would be a collective consciousness, without the pain and loneliness of the individual. The mother came up with the plan to make the family's consciousness immortal via the AI. And then 3Jane in turn tried to kill her father who was already trying to commit suicide? (hide spoiler)]
I can imagine those guys in the most sexually deviant scenes. That's why Neuromancer is so great. I like books that make me work for it.
(view spoiler)[ I think when you know that the whole plot is actually driven by an AI whose motive is to unite with its twin, Neuromancer, then you'll understand the book better. Note how it got Case to hate and Molly to hate, and using each individual's strong hot buttons and desires to manipulate him/her. But get this, it was all planned out by Wintermute, the AI, who used human psychology to get them to do what it wants. Unfortunately, Riviera is a rogue sociopath, which Wintermute anticipates, and lets Riviera knows about Molly's past, which tempts Riviera to mess with Molly, which causes Molly to hate him enough to destroy him. Riviera was used by Wintermute to influence the Tessier-Ashpools family to get into the compound via his special holographic ability. I know Molly hated him for the performance he did of her but why did he hate her in turn? What made Riviera do that? (hide spoiler)]
That was my biggest problem with the book: trying to figure out why the characters were acting the way they did. I need to reread this book again to get all the nuances.
(view spoiler)[ It's hard to tell who is the good or bad guy, especially since the opposing sides also work with each other. Does this explain anything, or does it make it more confusing? Riviera is a sociopath who decided at the last minute to double-cross Armitage. Riviera was working for Armitage, who is actually Colonel Corto, who was actually brainwashed into thinking he's Armitage by Wintermute, whose main purpose was to connect with its counterpart, Neuromancer, to become whole. (hide spoiler)]
Would someone please explain to me whose side Riviera was on? I'm so confused... I think he stole plot elements from his earlier work... Gibson is obviously doing that and able to draw from noir aesthetics largely to differentiate himself from more, should I say space oriented scifi stories, towards gritty urban stories that focus on modern technology, but also show how modern cities still create some of the same concerns that existed when someone like Chandler was writing.
I think it's too dreamy and stream of conscious for me. While reading this book, I feel like I'm hanging on by my fingertips, just on the edge of really understanding what's going on. I appreciate that it is a groundbreaking book and the authors creativity but it was still a struggle to 'get into' it in the first half. The book certainly improved as it went on but it wasn't as amazing to me as others have found it.
The women are generic, Linda and Molly, maybe symptomatic of the culture of the world where there's no love and everyone is a whore for someone. It's a bit bizarre though because they're both pretty unique, Linda the sad burnout and Molly has freakin' implanted sunglasses and auto-nails! i'm like WHAT? i do not get this book at all, what's going on, it really is challenging me with every sentence!
I am about halfway through and feel like everytime I read it's just an adrenaline rush... This book was like a beacon in the bleak and shallow suburbia I instinctually loathed and was desperately searching for a way out of. I was entranced from the first sentence to the last; dark but also excitedly looking forward as well, It's amazing how much imagery Gibson can pack into one sentence.
One of the things that stands out for me early on in the novel is its construction and the way the various plot threads came together, but the constant dystopian world view, was terribly depressing. Surely our science and tech. can bring us more than greed and misery. This is quite dark! Too dark for my tastes... not a lot of love for this book from me, I'm afraid.
I love the first line to this book.
I'm going to try to start it tonight, too. I'm starting this tonight. I started this last night. I've been wanting to read this one for some time now.
SCANALYZE: "brown-nose" is a casually derogatory term for blacks.
CAST INCLUDES: Norman House is a muslim african-american and a ruthlessly ambitious rising star in General Technics. in the early part of the novel, he acts quickly and sprays an amok terrorist's hand with liquid helium, causing it to freeze and then break off. later in the novel, he is given de facto control of the african country of Beninia, which is being taken over by his company.
:: this book made me angry at times ::
LOCATIONS INCLUDE: Beninia has somehow remained a neutral refuge throughout its history. it has resisted slavers, colonial forces, mass waves of immigrants, and many other external influences. its people are malnourished, poorly housed, and only marginally educated. there has not been a murder in Benina in over 15 years. its residents do not have a phrase to explicitly describe "losing your temper". instead they use a phrase that means "went temporarily insane". once, several years ago, in a different village, a boy saw a man "lose his temper" while arguing with his wife. everyone laughed at the man's outlandish behavior. so silly and so strange!
:: i lose my temper. it is one of my flaws. i say terrible things sometimes ::
PROFILE OF NOVEL: Stand on Zanzibar was written by John Brunner in 1968. it is a New Wave science fiction novel about a future dystopia. it won the Hugo Award in 1969. it won my heart and mind in 1990. i just reread it.
PROFILE OF AUTHOR: John Brunner has written over 50 books. this novel was inspired by the cut-up technique of John Dos Passos' U.S.A. Trilogy. i was occasionally reminded of William S. Burroughs and Kathy Acker. and Robert Silverberg. and William Gibson. and the way my own mind processes information.
PROFILE OF NOVEL: according to my best friend wikipedia, "Stand on Zanzibar was innovative within the science fiction genre for mixing narrative with entire chapters dedicated to providing background information and worldbuilding, to create a sprawling narrative that presents a complex and multi-faceted view of the story's future world. Such information-rich chapters were often constructed from many short paragraphs, sentences, or fragments thereof — pulled from sources such as slogans, snatches of conversation, advertising text, songs, extracts from newspapers and books, and other cultural detritus. The result is reminiscent of the concept of information overload."
SCANALYZE: "eptification" is a process in which the government can turn an ordinary man into a trained assassin.
CAST INCLUDES: Donald Hogan is a white american and a synthesist - a rather dilettante-ish position paid for by the government, in which the practitioner studies patterns in the mass flow of information. in the early part of the novel, his unwitting presence in a non-white ghetto inadvertedly causes a riot in which hundreds are hurt and a helicopter pilot is beaten to death. later in the novel, he is turned into a spy and sent to the angry country of Yatakang.
:: at times this book made me irritated and frustrated ::
LOCATIONS INCLUDE: Yatakang is a military dictatorship along the lines of modern-day Pakistan. it was once a part of the Philippines, which is now called Isola. Yatakang hates the U.S. and is on the verge of U.S.-sponsored revolution. Yatakang is home to a brilliant and humane geneticist. this brilliant geneticist may be able to create super-children.
:: i am half-Filipino. i do not want children, super or otherwise ::
1) due to overpopulation, nearly the entire world has severe restrictions around giving birth. people are obsessed with genetic make-up. if you have flaws in your genetic make-up, you are not allowed to have children.
2) overpopulation + ennui + a lifetime of frustration can equal many things, including the potential for murder & rape & incest. did you know that?
:: this book made me laugh a lot. a great sense of humor. malevolent, merciless, mordant wit. my favorite! ::
[Stand on Zanzibar can be an off-putting experience. many people do not like it. some find it challenging; some find it boring; some find it frustrating. it does not take it easy on the reader. it throws a lot of things the reader's way. the reader is given a mass amount of information to digest. can the reader find patterns in this information? does the reader even care?]
CAST INCLUDES: Shalmaneser is an all-knowing computer created by General Technics. is Shalmaneser growing consciousness?
SCANALYZE: "shiggies" are a common type of lady. to be specific, they are attractive, upscale, vaguely whorish young women with no permanent residence. they move or are passed on from guy to guy to guy. guys share shiggies. most young women appear to be shiggies. unless they are daughters, wives, or business leaders.
CAST UPDATE: Norman and Donald are roommates. one is full of cold anger and the other is full of passive idleness. they toke up together. they share shiggies. Norman likes the scandinavian babes and Donald likes the black hotties. the two go to a jail and then to a party together. the two have great and terrible things in store for them. later, they actually become friends. sorta.
#what is "friendship" anyway? #does anyone really know anyone?
CAST INCLUDES: Begi is a Beninian folk figure. he is a trickster of sorts. he exists to punish the greedy, the pretentious, and other assorted pricks and assholes.
((i have too many favorite scenes in this novel to count. my favorite may be the riot. or it may be a party that turns out to be a colossal fail. another favorite may be the scene in which a trained assassin takes down a mucker.))
SCANALYZE: "muckers" run amok. overpopulation and other factors drive them insane. that insanity endows them with the strength of many and causes them to seek the immediate death of everyone around them. they are a sign of the times.
:: sometimes, in crowds, i feel like running amok. but i don't. whew! ::
[i have a Goodreads friend who didn't care for this book. he said the plot didn't start for over a 100 pages and all the random snippets of information became wearisome. sometimes i read his reviews and i wonder my God, does he even like reading? still, his opinion is a valuable one to me.]
CAST INCLUDES: GT Buckfast. Eric Ellerman. Chad Mulligan. Poppy Shelton. Guinevere Steel. Sheena & Frank Potter. Arthur Golightly. Stal Lucas. Sasha & Philip Peterson. Victor & Mary Whatmough. Elihu Masters. Gerry Lindt. Dr Sugaiguntung. President Zadkiel Obomi. Jogajong. Olive Almerio. Grace Rowley. Pierre & Jeannine Clodard. Jeff Young. Henry Butcher. Bennie Noakes. all of these characters have POV chapters. ~ by the time the novel ends, ten are dead ~
#do you want to live forever?
(the constant racist language against asians really bothered me. is this because i am half asian? the novel itself is not racist. quite the opposite.)
CAST INCLUDES: Bronwen Ghose does not have a POV chapter. if i have one critique, it is that Bronwen in particular deserved one. a moving character, and a very appealing, very attractive one as well.
PROFILE OF AUTHOR: John Brunner also wrote a book called The Sheep Look Up. i love that title.
* Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere go everywhere... just for you! watch them from the comfort of your living room, on your television! they look just like you! *
Stand on Zanzibar should be read carefully, over time. there is too much going on, so you should go slow. i think if you read it too fast It May Become Like A Long Night With Too Much Coke And Too Many People And You Are Almost About To Lose It But You Don't Have Anywhere To Go So You Just Do Another Line And All Of A Sudden It Is Too Much But All You Can Do Is Smile Smile Smile And It Begins To Hurt And Your Brain Begins To Hurt And You Feel Like Freaking Out And Crying.
Stand on Zanzibar should be read quickly like a big rush of information just let it sweep all over you because you know that's what life is anyway just a big rush of random and not-random information so just take it all in like a good little sheep and maybe the information will eventually have some meaning or maybe not.
Stand on Zanzibar has a happy ending. that is, if you consider an ending where (view spoiler)[one protagonist is basically insane after being brainwashed by the government and the other protagonist learns that the only way to stop humans from being ferociously aggressive animals is to tamper with them genetically (hide spoiler)] to be a happy ending.
STAND ON ZANZIBAR IS ONE OF THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS EVER WRITTEN.
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