Space Chase

Books used to be shorter in the 70's have you noticed. David Gerrold's Space Skimmer is one such short book, just over 200 pages in my version.

The Human Empire has ended, in fact it's nowhere to be found and Mass is looking for it, really he is looking for the lost Space Skimmer's which are faster than light craft that zoom the Human Race around the galaxy.
This is a story more about communication and connections than high adventure. In the end and not surprisingly for a book written in the early 70's we discover that love is the answer to all, once the five characters can learn to communicate effectively and love each other all is well.
This was a good read not space opera but filled with ideas. Not surprising as Gerrold was one of the creative forces behind Star Trek. It was also extremely refreshing after the disappointment of the Brian Aldiss Dracula fiasco.

Planning continues for the big European trip. Some reviews of hotels and hostels are quite terrifying though. It is however fun to think of the things to do and the stuff to experience.

Void City

I'd forgotten about this book, maybe I tried to forget about it at the end of the day, it really was a wretched thing and worse still it is by one of my favorite authors. Although I was not enjoying it I am cursed with the need to finish every story I begin, the urge to know what happens next is too much. Nothing can really prepare anyone for the terror that is:

If you should chose to read this horror then you will have to go on the journey with a strong stomach and a spirit of hope. I was not sure whether this was set before or after Frankenstein Unbound although by the mid-point I had given up and it became an endurance task to get to the end. I cannot even remember where this came in my reading, I also have little recollection of the story, there is a train, time travel, vampires and Bram Stoker with syphilis.

Brian Aldiss is however one of the greats of science fiction, maybe he needed a new house or a pool or to pay his taxes, there has to be a reason.





In other news tickets have been bought for Tom and my trip to the UK, also tickets for Cropredy are purchased and hopefully will arrive before we leave.
It will also be an opportunity to shop for J.G. Ballard books. Also maybe the blog will become a more entertaining prospect.

The War I Survived

Well things are certainly busy, a week of the Icicle Works on constant replay followed by another week of Fairport Convention is a panacea for all ills. Very exciting week as it looks like we will be able to attend the Cropredy Festival this year, well Thomas and I will be able to.

A fairly busy reading schedule has been going on, I started out with Dan Simmons Hyperion. This series is one of my all time favourite reads. I only really have a memory of this the first book, I am going to spread the other three books throughout the year as a way of pacing myself on some level. It is one of the few series on my shelf, another being Asimovs Foundation series. Everyone should take the time to read Dan Simmons he is one of the few authors who can cross genres well, covering horror, science fiction, crime novels and now historical fiction  albeit with a hint of the macabre.

Next was Zelaznys Dream Master. I usually enjoy Zelaznys work but this time I was just too distant from the characters, I did not really feel any sympathy for any of them, even the youth in the book was distant and cold. It was a fascinating idea though of a therapist getting caught in the construct of his patients mind.

The Space Merchants was a much more satisfying read. Mostly a political diatribe against consumerism and the influence of large corporations it nevertheless had an engaging story and like able characters. The biggest surprise about this book is how long ago it was written, the majority of people would have the opinion that science fiction written in the 50's would have little to no relevance for today, in this case they would be wrong.

McCaffrey's first novel and not her most successful. Ostensibly an attempt to present a strong female lead role into science fiction, the novel reads more like an historical romance were one event after another pushes the main character around from one situation to the next.
Many of the themes McCaffrey would use in the Pern universe are here, the mix of high tech and a more pastoral lifestyle and non-traditional relationships, although the technology is something stolen not something forgotten and rediscovered. The culture of Restoree is not a rich or well realized as Pern though.

Rereading Heinlein is a rewarding experience, sometimes though I wonder how the teenage me got through the long philosophical passages, in fact there is not much what we would call action today. This is true of Revolt in 2100 as well as Starship Troopers, both books are concerned with ideas not necessarily action. Revolt n 2100 is a cautionary tale of allowing radical fundamental Christianity to  meddle too much, if at all  in politics. The book opens with the US in the grip of a theocracy caused by the alliance of fundamental Christianity, TV and an advertising company. Heinlein saw it as a possibility ion the 40's it is still possible now, this makes the novel even more chilling, a story that is still relevant.

Down Through The Night

I've been neglecting the blog, as if anyone noticed. It's a strange experience to write for yourself. It's been a few weeks of living with the music of the past, Here and Now, Gong, Hawkwind, the Inner City Unit and Robert Calvert along with many others from the left of alternative scene of the eighties. So many ideals squashed by the jack boot of Thatcher's Britain.

On to the next book. A book written in 1956 that has all the violence and attitude of a modern book. A tale of revenge that was so intense a read I gulped it down in one bite.
I've not been avoiding this book but it is almost so famous that you feel you don't want to or need to read it. Well worth the time and also on every list of greatest science fiction out there. Not without reason either.
Having now read it I can see aspects of the story in other novels, most recently for me in Dan Simmons Hyperion as Colonel Kassad struggles to survive after this hospital ship is attacked by Ousters, he even looks for a closet in his leaking and ill fitting space suit.

Then Mia's tale in Panshin's Rite of Passage. I'm not sure what to think of this right now, part Heinlein part sixties ideology and part coming of age tale and ultimately not as satisfying as it could have been. It may be that Panshin himself grew up as he wrote this tale, he went through an argument with Heinlein, his time in the service and then on to life. The many natures of the book may have more to do with Panshin maturing than Mia.
I think this is a book that is deceptively simple on the surface but more thought and rereading may bring out it's true nature.









Last night was the big Robert Plant and the Band of Joy show, a truly unique musical experience. Gone is the posturing of previous Plant shows and replacing it is a prowling monster of a show that covers everything from psychedelia, hard rock, folk and then eastern influences, maybe Plant has come into his own finally as a live artist.

Quark Strangeness and Charm

I was a really exciting two weeks or so of reading, both books were new to me and one author was unread by me.
Samuel R. DeLaney is the new author, for years whenever I went into a bookstore I would look at his books and move on to whatever was on my mind at the time. His books where always there, just not being bought it seems. Babel17, Triton and Dhalgren always were sitting on used bookshelves waiting to be discovered. Once I started the list however his books seemed to be gone, someone else was discovering the worlds of Samuel R. DeLaney and now I could find them nowhere. Eventually in Powell's I found DeLaney, I bought The Einstein Intersection and Triton and put them on the shelf, it was last week at the beach I began the Einstein Intersection.

It's a book that  begins in the middle. Earth is no longer populated by humans but by a race that is striving to be "human" or at least what they think of as human. The idea of what is normal and mutation becomes much more interesting when viewed through the lens of a race attempting to realize the "ideal" of humanity through it's mythology. The myth of Orpheus is threaded throughout the novel, with dragon herding cowboys and enticing leftovers from humanity. It's a wonderful read that left me wishing for more and I now wish I had begun reading DeLaney's work earlier.

Finally I found some Ballard to read again, unfortunately I had to get it from the library, unfortunate because I would love to own this book. It's a strange book about a jungle becoming crystallized, we find out in the book that this is happening around the world and it is intimated that this will become a global change. It is a book that has it's own atmosphere, everything seems to happen in slow motion and is almost predestined. It is a very English book with the characters accepting their fates and in the case of Suzanne and Sanders almost with relief.
My search for more Ballard goes on, I am looking for the Drowned World and High Rise, my journey to England later in the year may help with this.




I have now abandoned the list, allowing my reading to go were it will as I look at the books on the shelf. I also joined ann online reading group for science fiction which should be interesting. It's here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClassicScienceFiction/ anyone is interested.

The last couple of weeks have also been spent reminiscing on the music of Here and Now, one of the great bands of the late 70's and the 80's that never made it, mainly because their political leanings drove most labels away and their insistence on playing at free festivals and free shows was so different to the selfishness of Thatcher's United Kingdom. So it's been a good few weeks.

Solitary Mindgames

The voyage continues with many new books bought this week, well old books but new to me thanks to used bookstores. Robert's Books in Lincoln City could very well be the best bookstore I have been in for a long time. A labyrinth of book cases with piles of book precariously balanced on top of other piles with signs saying "please do not rearrange." So many treasures found including Hothouse by Brian Aldiss, a book I have not read since my teens.

Collecting books has become something of an obsession as has the reading of them. Reveling in barely remembered worlds of my youth. It seems I have been concentrating mainly on books from the 50's through the early 80's this is mainly because they seem to be the hardest to track down. J.G. Ballard is almost impossible to find in a store, I am going to have to resort to online purchasing. I will have to address this as my reading is a bit lopsided at the moment and could appear a little obsessed with the past. There is however time for Jeff VanDerMeer and China Mieville who's books sit on my shelf. I have also had to stop looking at the library website in order to concentrate on reading purchased books.

The list is growing although there is no list.

This book was nowhere near any list I had thought about or written but I can't resist an apocalyptic tale.

As with all Dickson's books it seems mans mind overcomes the almost impossible predicament that the human race finds itself in. An adventure that was thoroughly enjoyable, a man in search of his attachment to others, a strange girl who refuses to talk and an affectionate leopard.

Not as enjoyable as Wolf and Iron but still a great way to while away some rainy afternoons.

On to the best read of the week, some of the most beautiful language and the best evocation of an alien landscape with apparently no regard to actual knowledge of what the Martian landscape is truly like.

The Martian Chronicles is a tour de force, it is more about humanity than aliens and has to be one of the most beautifully written books I have read since I started this. The first chapter or story alone should convince anyone reading that science fiction is literature not just a genre. The other stories seem to occupy their own space and time, gentle and yet violent in their content.

Arrival In Utopia

"To Your Scattered Bodies Go"  The Riverworld series is something I have been meaning to read for a long time, such a great concept, all the humans who have ever lived resurrected at the same time and spread along an impossibly long river. So many possible things could happen but then they don't, a grand concept gets reduced to one man's voyage. Nothing is really resolved and the voyage goes on, and on, it's as if Farmer really had not idea what his own plans were, just wander aimlessly until something occurs seems to be the concept.

Plenty of sex, violence and a little shock value with Goering as a major character who seems to at some point redeem himself. Oh well relatively interesting romp but I'm not going to read the other novels..





Clapton was unpredictably exceptional, Clapton truly may be the god of blues guitar, lyrical incentive and enjoyable. Truly a brave move to be the only guitar on stage.

So then on to Starship Troopers, Heinlein's libertarian manifesto, it's not racist, it's not fascist and definitely not Utopian either. It is however a polemic and many of Heinlein's more extreme ideas regarding the franchise and personal responsibility are not so much as outlined as driven home with a lump hammer.

It was written at the same time as Stranger In A Strange Land but with an angry Heinlein at the typewriter as the USA decided to stop its weapons testing. So it spawned military science fiction created a furor won an award and became probably the worst science fiction movie ever made, and yes I did try to watch it again it truly is horrible. It glorifies the military without glorifying war and makes you think, well anyone with an ounce of intelligence will think the rest will shout hoorah and join up.

As a book however it succeeds, it was Heinlein's last attempt at Juvenile fiction although the publisher would not accept it, after this book his novels would never be so naive again.

Robert Silverberg's novella is a story that will linger in your mind long after the 100 or so pages are over. A world of castes that is watching and waiting for the invasion that is predicted. A watcher, flier and changeling journey to Roum were the invasion finally happens.

It's a sad story of the decadent decline of a society, although at the end there is a sense that salvation can and does happen. The watcher is released of his burden although he seems to have found a new one and the flier is through love allowed to fly in daylight, although even in love there is a sacrifice as her lover is an invader.

On to Vance's cautionary tale of decadence, sloth and the results of slavery. All is well in the end though as humanity overcomes the opposition of their Mekk slaves and returns them to their own world. Balance is restored, the decadent become guardians of the past and humanity becomes uncomfortable with its laziness.

 

On to the best book of the week, Pierre Boulle's masterpiece Planet of the Apes or Monkey Planet as it was originally called. This was my favourite book so far, surprisingly the original movie was very close to the book and a classic in it's own right. Maybe this is one instance of the movie being the equal of the novel.

So the last three stories have really been cautionary tales of what happens when man becomes too reliant on something outside themselves. This is best described in Planet of the Apes when the racial memory is brought to the forefront by the  apes experiments and humanity is shown to just fade back to a savage primeval state. Then there is also the shocking final scene from the book which really equals the famous lady liberty scene in the movie.

We Took The Wrong Step Years Ago

"Earth Abides" is deservedly a classic, a well imagined description of one section of the human races decline to an almost paleolithic state  after a a global epidemic. Having read  other post-apocalyptic fiction I kept wanting to grab Ish and his contented crew by the scruff of their collective neck and make them work to survive other than having to find a new can opener.

A frustrating read on that level but really a great book describing exactly how unimportant man can be, if he remains passive, on a global scale, Ish eventually succumbs to his own passivity and just lets go of any attempt to intellectually influence the future but concentrates on giving his "tribe" skills that they will find useful and a talisman that will signify leadership. I kept hoping that somewhere there was a group of people farming and making their own future rather than just allowing themselves to fade away happily into obscurity.

Then on to William Gibson and  "Neuromancer."

The most recent book I've read so far although 1984 is still 17 years ago, hard to imagine I have missed Gibson for so long but that's the way things go.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, Philip K. Dick meets Elmore Leonard, I will be looking out for more Gibson beginning with the other two Sprawl novels and then who knows were else. It's good to "discover" a new writer, on some level though I think I may have been deliberately avoiding Gibson, probably for the same reason, according to Michelle, I have only just begun to watch "Lost," it was too mainstream at the time.

Monday is the big Eric Clapton show me and the boys are going to. I am sure it will be a good experience for all, although maybe a little too predictable. Maybe I really do struggle with the mainstream.

Best thing I heard today is the Manic Street Preachers covering Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head.

Who's Gonna Win The War Now

This sticking to the idea of only reading science fiction may be harder than I at first planned. Fevre Dream is not really science fiction although it was on one of the many lists I looked over, on reflection it is definitely more in the fantastic fiction camp. This was one of the reasons for abandoning the lists in the first place.

My answer to this is to read a book that is universal to all lists, luckily as I pored over the books in the library book store I found a hard back copy of George R. Stewart's "Earth Abides." Funny how my answer to a dissatisfaction with lists is to return to the lists, now there is a thought for the therapists couch.

So onward with the adventures of Ish and his survival after the epidemic that has ended the majority of human life on earth. This book was written in 1949 and seems to be acknowledged as a classic so it fits the criteria.

 I have managed to collect quite a stack of reading so I should at least write a list of some variety although it may be best to just read and see what jumps off the shelf in the moment, or maybe books will make connections, and then there are the books I've already read.

Maybe as this whole thing progresses it will become some sort of anarchic stumble through the stack of books on the shelf and overflowing onto the floor.

Some authors are more difficult than others to find it seems, Ballard and Aldiss particularly so, with Isaac Asimov also proving elusive. As I search through used bookstores I find myself drawn to those old books I read as a teen, or have sold in the past or given away, there have been at least three books I have bought again this week.

Down Through the Night


The rules are such that in order to read the book you must own the book. Also you cannot buy the book online, part of the game is the search for the book and then the reading, it's almost hunting but not really. In fact it's nothing like hunting.

Two books read since this all began Bob Shaw’s Orbitsville, because it was the thinnest and therefore easiest to read and finish quickly, and George R Martin’s Fevre Dream.

The Shaw is a hard science fiction epic in 180 pages. This is barely enough to get the story going, tantalizing but ultimately unsatisfying. The  protagonist is not exactly a character you could sympathize with, he allows a child to die through inattention, takes his wife for granted and expects obedience from his crew by virtue of his station in life. The exploration of the Dyson sphere is at best cursory as is the examination of the role of corporations as the new Empires.

Martin’s tale is a fantasy although it slid in as maybe science fiction by the vampires being a species that had evolved alongside man and had no supernatural abilities. They are parasites feeding on man and adopting his art and style. The novel is, as with all of Martin’s books  well realized with engaging characters, especially that of Abner the riverboat captain. The setting of a river boat at the height of  Mississippi river trade in the 19th century was unusual.I'm not sure this book should count but it was good.


The soundtrack for the week was Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew Live and P.J. Harvey’s Let England Shake which were at times more challenging than entertaining


This week’s soundtrack is the Pixies discography after Thomas and I watched the movie Loud Quiet Loud. Although at the moment Robyn Hitchcock is imposing on my consciousness.

Time We Left This World Today

“Time We Left This World Today”

I have a friend who questions my reading of science fiction; he seems to believe that it is a lesser form of writing and as such is not a useful use of time. I should be reading Rimbaud or Orwell, contemplating the plight of man and considering the lessons history can teach us. He considers himself fairly forward thinking and he is undoubtedly well read and even on the verge of over educated; he is also blind to the idea that genre fiction can have value. When he succumbs to Pat Frank or Cormac McCarthy he cannot allow himself to accept they are writing within a genre, for him it would be like discovering Dylan made a great disco album.

Rather than argue with him I decided to read what others consider to be the most worthy efforts that authors have made in the genre of science fiction. This would prove nothing to him, but would allow me to have hours of fun and an excuse to rediscover some of the novels that had excited my young mind, opening it up to the idea of possibilities and improbabilities not being so improbable.

After two weeks of attempting to create a list and keep it manageable I have now given up the idea of a definitive 100 books, it’s too subjective and the cross referencing was giving me an headache. So here are some lists if you like that sort of thing, I certainly do:

http://www2.ku.edu/~sfcenter/sflib.htm

http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_books_rank1.html

http://www.listology.com/list/david-pringles-best-100-science-fiction-novels

http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3.Best_Science_Fiction_Books


See how hard it gets, and that’s only after a few minutes.

Other fun and useful websites that only served to confuse rather than clarify:

http://www2.ku.edu/~sfcenter/index.html

http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/

http://www.sfsite.com/

So the project has become for a year Feb 2011 to Feb 2012 take the time to read some of the greatest titles in science fiction past and present. Of course I may get sidetracked by any number of books along the way and then there is always music.