SF with an Accent: An Interview with Tobias Buckell
tags:
Science Fiction
Tobias Buckell is the author of Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin, and the forthcoming Sly Mongoose, as well as many other short stories. He is also a professional blogger and blog consultant. He agreed to an interview after I read and reviewed his book Crystal Rain (which…
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leave a comment Philip K. Dick: American Original
tags:
book review, literature, science fiction
What’s this? Philip K. Dick has been admitted to the pantheon. Four of his novels will be re-issued by the Library of America, alongside American masters such as Melville, Hawthorne, Roth, et al.
As a longtime fan who for decades has bent people’s ears about the literary merit of Philip K. Dick, I am as proud today as if a good friend were chosen for this honor. With one major misgiving: The Library ignored three of his very best books.
The Library chose four mainstream Dick novels: The Man in the High Castle, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Ubik, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The latter three are excellent choices. (The first, Man in the High Castle is an odd choice, given it was one of Dick’s early novels and not his strongest.) But for some reason, the Library dismissed the trilogy he completed near the end of his life: the so-called VALIS trilogy (VALIS, The Divine Invasion, and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer.
The reason why is probably best summarized in a recent New York Times article, in which Charles McGrath dismissed the VALIS trilogy as Dick’s “Finnegan’s Wake—a book that’s more fun to talk about than to read.”
When I read that, I almost spit out my coffee. (I also take issue with McGrath’s description of Blade Runner as the best film adaptation of a Philip K Dick novel. Perhaps he hadn’t seen the movie since the 1980s. It has not aged well.)
Then I calmed down and wondered: Am I just too much of a fan? Have I become such a PKD nut that I find enjoyment in a science-fiction Finnegan’s Wake?
Actually no. I recently re-read VALIS, and recalled why Dick’s books have always moved me so deeply. It is not the mobius-strip weirdness that Hollywood finds so compelling (wow, what if robots became so human-like that we couldn’t tell the difference?) On the contrary, it is the fact that Dick used these storytelling loops as a springboard to explore the nature of reality, and in particular, the questions of what it means to be human. Philip K. Dick was a spiritual seeker trapped in the science-fiction genre.
In 1974, after years of drug abuse (mostly amphetamines to fuel his writing), he underwent a mystical experience that he described as “an invasion of my mind by a transcendentally rational mind.” He quit the drugs that had fueled his hyperactive writing. He wrote a moving elegiac novel dedicated to the friends he had lost to drugs (Through a Scanner Darkly). And then he wrote three books (The VALIS trilogy) in which he tried to deal directly with the topics he had touched upon all through his career: Is there a divine consciousness, and if so, how does it manifest itself in us, or to us?
Contrary to McGrath, the trilogy is straightforward and pleasurable to read. True, there are narrative quirks such as a character named Philip K. Dick, and a familiar-seeming writer named Horselover Fat. But such old-fashioned meta-fiction tricks hardly equal the linguistic labyrinth that is Finnegan’s Wake. The VALIS trilogy compares better to reading Philip Roth’s Patrimony after having enjoyed the narrative hide-and-seek of the Zuckerman series. For once, the author has dropped his artifices and is telling it to you as straight as he can. The result is stark and deeply moving.
By no means would I suggest Philip K. Dick compares to Philip Roth. A speed freak, he probably never slowed down enough to give structure or style a second thought. But whatever his faults, he was a writer with a stunning imagination, a durable gift for storytelling, and a deep longing for answers to the eternal questions. His VALIS trilogy has the tragic beauty of a lifelong seeker who is finally coming to the end of his search.
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5 commentsBook Review: The Road
tags:
Fiction, Post-Apolcalyptic Fiction, Pulitzer, Science Fiction
The Road is a one sit read. I find it difficult to believe that anyone could possibly start reading this book and not continuously read it through to the end. Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer-prize winning book is so harrowing, and yet so hopeful, that as a reader turns the pages, he will not be able to stop.
The plot is simple. A father and son travel across a post-apocalyptic wasteland of ash and death. Following old maps, scrounging for tinned cans of food (as nothing grows anymore) and avoiding those humans who have turned to cannibalism in order to survive. The story follows them through their trial and travails. It is not a new plot, and has been used many times before.
But that is not what won the novel its awards. It is the relationship between man and boy that gathers these. The man is practical and utilitarian, the boy conscientious and caring. (Perhaps it is a metaphor for government by the people?) As the two face death, day by day, they find solace in one another’s company. This bond is strong and gets stronger as they face bandits and come close to starvation more than once.
The style of writing is, I believe, Faulknerian, in that punctuation is ignored. Quotation marks and apostrophes are particularly ignored. This can be off-putting to the reader, but move past it, as the work gets really good. The lack of punctuation works for the novel, adding a level of austerity and bleakness to the text. McCarthy’s writing in this way heightens the emotions of the reader and leads him/her to feel the ultimate despair of its characters.
And the despair is deep. It is only deepened in that, as the pair travel the road, the story only gets bleaker and the reader begins to wonder why they continue to travel. It seems the world has ended. Unlike in other post-apocalyptic novels, there is no idyll or paradise waiting just over the next hill. It makes you wonder just what the man and boy are hoping to find at the end of their journey.
Some critics have tried to turn this book into a metaphor on environmentalism. The world is ash and it was caused by some sort of holocaust. A holocaust powerful enough to keep wildlife from surviving, trees from growing, seeds from taking root, and turning the ocean into a gray morass. I can see where those critics get that idea. But the characters never dwell on the destruction, nor really comment on the world as it has become. Most of their conversation centers on death, survival, and the nature of God.
Rather than being a metaphor for environmentalism, I see this book as a metaphor of the search for God and the power of hope and love for one another. Perhaps that sounds like a platitude, but McCarthy has shown the depth to which these things affect us, and how all of our life is really a striving after purpose and hope.
Ultimately, the man finds his purpose in saving the boy and the boy in helping others even needier than him. More than once the man refers to the boy as a god, and it makes me wonder if the boy is a metaphor for Christ? He certainly displays similar traits. But honestly, that might be too much of a stretch.
If you attempt this book, realize that you will be depressed both during and some time after reading this book. When I walked away, I saw more clearly the beauty of what I had in my life. The cold hard world of The Road showed me the beauty of my own especially of the relationship I have to my beloved wife.
The Road is a moving, depressing, and simultaneously hopeful book. It is unlike any post apocalypse novel I have ever read, and it made me look at my world with more appreciative eyes. The book should be read, and I actually agree (surprisingly!) with the Pulitzer committee and all the reviewers who have so highly praised it. The Road is a work of literature greater than its genre.
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Book Review: The Prestige
tags:
Fantasy, Science Fiction, World Fantasy Award Winner
Part Fantasy. Part Science Fiction. Part History. Part Memoir. Part Horror. Part Mystery. And the list goes on. The Prestige, by Christopher Priest, belongs in all of these genres, and yet it really belongs in none of them. Winner of the World Fantasy Award, The Prestige is a complex and convoluted fantasy novel that is truly innovative.
A part of the urban fantasy subgenre of contemporary fantasy, The Prestige, tells the story of two illusionists of the early 1900s. For various reasons, these two magicians, of wholly different characters, have fallen into a feud, each trying to outdo the other on stage and in their personal lives. Alfred Borden is a magician of the old style, naturally gifted in magic, a stage magician who despises those who use magic tricks to pretend to real magical ability. Rupert Angier is a magician down on his luck that turns to pretending to be a spiritualist to make ends meet (although eventually he does make it to the stage). It is from this their feud stems, but it eventually goes way beyond that.
Each story is told in the first person. It is here that the element of memoir comes in, as Borden and Angier each relates his story either as a memoir or diary, respectively. Borden’s story comes first, and it is from him that we get the shell of the story. Angier’s diary follows and it is from him that the questions raised in Borden’s memoir are answered, including the strange use of the pronoun “I”. Overarching this story is another frame, which involves two great-grandchildren of these men, whose lives were profoundly changed by Angier’s greatest illusion.
The story is complex and convoluted, although similar to the popular movie The Illusionist, it is in no real way comparable other than in their settings, and the main characters profession. Where The Illusionist is a love story, The Prestige is a fantasy, even a suspense novel. (In part these are comparable because The Prestige has also been made into a movie, which this reviewer has not seen.) The novel’s best comparison would be to the popular science fiction stories if the 1930’s and 1940’s, wherein a scientist discovers time travel or some new scientific device.
The book does not end as I would have liked. The story leading up to the climax is interesting and fascinating, the ongoing feud builds in interesting and creative ways, and the answers to THE NEW TRANSPORTED MAN (Borden’s trick) and IN A FLASH (Angier’s trick) are cleverly revealed. However, the overarching story of the descendents seems disconnected except superficially, and its climax is both anticlimactic and horrifying, making its tone seem out of place with the rest of the novel, which is more sedate and has more of a mystery or suspense feel to it, than horror. But then, mystery and horror are closely connected, as the genre of mystery was created by one of the best horror writers ever, Edgar Allen Poe. And a comparison between this book and the Tell-Tale Heart, would not be far astray.
I recommend this book be read by those who like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell by Susanna Clarke. The history filled with magic plot line will appeal to Clarke’s readers. I recommend that those who like reading the old pulp magazines give The Prestige a shot also. If you like a good mystery and don’t mind a sort of incomplete ending you might like this book as well. I enjoyed it, although I was disappointed in the ending, but then, I like my books to feel like the story is complete, and this one will leave you wondering.
Electricity and Nikola Tesla are also important parts of the story, but if I tell you why, it would ruin the whole effect. See for yourself if you want to know.
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I’m published again!
tags:
Fantasy, Publishing, Science Fiction
After I wrote this post yesterday, my copy of the latest Black Gate Magazine came in the mail and guess who’s letter to the editor was published? That’s right, little old me. In Issue 9, a reader of the magazine (Lawrence Ore), and a Christian,…
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The 2007 Arthur C. Clarke Award
tags:
science fiction
The shortlist for the 2007 Arthur C. Clarke Award, for the best science fiction novel published in the UK in 2006, has been announced:
End of the World Blues by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Nova Swing by M. John Harrison
Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet
Hav by Jan Morris
Gradisil by Adam Roberts
Streaking by Brian Stableford
The judges for the 2007 Award are: for the BSFA, Niall Harrison and Claire Weaver; for the Science Fiction Foundation, Pat Cadigan and Graham Sleight; and for the Science Museum, David Palmer. The winner, who will receive a prize of £2007, will be announced on Wednesday 2nd May.
There are links to some reviews of the shortlisted titles here, and some reactions to the shortlist here, here, and here.
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Dying of the Light
tags:
Fantasy, Science Fiction
Author: George R. R. Martin
Genre: Science Fiction
Pub. Date: September 2004
Format: Paperback, 254pp
Publisher: Bantam Books
If an old flame (who, you believe, no longer has any interest in you) were to send a request for help, and you would have to travel three months through the deepest and remotest regions of space to a desolate world very near its death, would you go? Dirk t’Larien would. It is this premise that drives George R. R. Martin’s novel, Dying of the Light.
Famous for his Song of Ice and Fire Cycle, Martin is known for his ability to write detailed characters and setting, and the intricate weaves of his plots. Although considerably slimmer in its 224 pages than the Song of Ice and Fire with its (currently) four volumes, none of what makes George R. R. Martin notable is lost.
Dying of the Light tells the story of a man caught in a love triangle. Dirk returns to an old girlfriend (Gwen Delvano) to learn that she is married to another man. Her request for help seems odd to Dirk, but nonetheless his old loyalty and love drive him to assist her. But there is a peculiar twist (this kind of thing is what shows Martin’s genius), Gwen has married outside her own culture into one whose marriage habits and cultural beliefs are greatly out of sync with those of other planets. Her relationship to her husband is more of master and slave than lovers. Her husband also has a male partner, called a teyn, who is part and parcel of this family. In fact, the men’s bond is even stronger than Gwen’s with her husband. It is from this anti-female culture that Dirk must save Gwen.
Martin weaves amazing cultures in his writing. With pen to paper, he generates complete cultures that are both comprehensive and consistent. This fact is often blamed for his slow writing and lack of a great number of works, but then it is also what makes them worth reading.
Dying of the Light seeks to tell an interesting and active story, while also doing comprehensive world-building. Worlorn is a fragile place where cultures clash and things are not always as they seem.
There is nothing quite like this story out there. I fell into the story and became Dirk t’Larien. His story was my story and his fears hopes and dreams my own, for the brief space of time I spent on Worlorn.
The book is an enjoyable science fiction read. The characters are interesting, the plot twisted enough to keep a reader from desiring to put it down, and the setting is magnificently wrought. I highly recommend this book as an excellent read that is challenging, romantic, and fun.
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The Children of Men
tags:
Science Fiction
Author: P.D. James
Genre: Science Fiction
Pub. Date: May 2006
Format: Paperback, 256pp
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Edition Description: REPRINT
Unputdownable. Mesmerizing. Intriguing. Hopeful. It is these words that best describe the work that is P.D. James’s The Children of Men. Stepping out of genre (she is a mystery writer) but not out of skill, James has crafted a novel that is a Christian apologetic, a science fiction thriller, and a humanist manifesto. Seem contradictory to you? You’d be right. It is the contradiction that makes the novel so good, a potential classic.
Mankind has lost the ability to reproduce. The last children born, the Omegas, are now twenty-five years old. The race is dying slowly, but dying it is. Most of the world has fallen apart, but England still exists under the rulership of a dictator. It is a peaceful country where people wait to die, euthanasia of the old is commonplace, and criminals are exiled. In steps Theodore Faron, cousin to the Warden (dictator) of England. A dissident group tries to use his influence with the dictator to enact some reforms, but all this is put by the wayside when it is discovered that on of the dissidents, a social reject, is pregnant. Pursued for scientific study by a man they despise, the woman and her companions, including Faron run into the English countryside, now a wilderness of forests.
It is a compellingly fast-paced novel. What began as an attempt to read a few chapters before bed ended in a 1:30 bedtime and a finished novel. The reader will be unable to put this work down.
P.D. James’s Christian faith is very evident in the novel. Christian symbolism abounds, although the people, even the heroes, are frighteningly human. Faith and prayer are integral parts of the story. This then can be described as a Christian apologetic, a declaration of the need for faith in God, even in the most trying of times. The work will be called pro-life, and I am surprised, after treading it, that this book ever became a movie.
It is also a humanist manifesto, as it is humans who do the dirty work, humans who show their potential for good and evil, although ultimately it is the Christian God who works evil into good. Humanity’s last best hope is itself, and those social rejects such as the infirm, the damaged physically and mentally, who are our saviors.
This novel is stunning in the issues it tackles. Many of its fears are close to our own hearts, and we are left wondering whether or not this might indeed happen. Written in 1992, the timeline it uses will eventually make it outdated, but perhaps it will become like George Orwell’s 1984.
Do not approach this book a simply another science fiction book. See The Children of Men as a treatise on humanity, a look into the future at what our decisions to seek comfort and pleasure above all else may turn us into, even without such a major catastrophe as barrenness.
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The Left Hand of Darkness
tags:
Science Fiction
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre: Science Fiction
Pub. Date: July 2000
Format: Paperback, 320pp
Publisher: Ace Trade
Series: Hainish Series
“Light is the left hand of darkness.” There is yin and yang, some good, some evil in everything, no matter the outward appearance. This is the philosophy of The Left Hand of Darkness the Hugo and Nebula award-winning book by Ursula K. Le Guin. Originally released in 1969; I came across a reissue while browsing a Barnes and Noble.
As a fan of the Earthsea Cycle, I knew Le Guin’s writing to be odd, even eccentric, with high prose and philosophical meanderings woven into the plots. Her books feel like the old legends, the myths, sometime lacking description, sometimes with too much, but always telling a story.
The introduction written by Le Guin found in this reissue, states that science fiction is actually “descriptive not prescriptive”. She means that science fiction tells the story of what is, not what might be, although it may seem that way.
The Left Hand of Darkness relates the story of the planet Winter, a frigid planet populated by a separate race of humans that have evolved over millennia into androgynous people, neither fully male nor fully female but both in one body. Into this planet enters Genly Ai, a human like us, with separate gender. He has come to offer membership into a society of space-faring humans to the planet Winter.
The juxtaposition of types is prevalent throughout the novel. Along with gender there is politics (hints of the Cold War in the differences between Karhide and its opposite, one a monarchy, the other a bureaucracy like communism), cultural differences, and even the weather.
Ultimately, this book seeks to show that humanity, no matter its type, belongs as part of a whole. The development of the friendship between Ai and Estraven, through the suffering endured as the crossed the ice alone, shows that humanity should be able to reconcile its differences. Much of this book gives a glimpse into the era often just called “the 60’s” wherein civil rights, free love, and new philosophies gained much traction in our history. The Left Hand of Darkness fictionalizes these struggles for identity, for purpose and meaning by creating a world so opposite and yet so like our own that we cannot help but see the inherent qualities of man, no matter his race, creed, gender, or sexual orientation.
As to my own opinion, I think that in some ways, this book is an apologetic for atheism, New Age philosophies, and the civil rights movement of those who would prefer to choose their own gender. In this I cannot agree. I do not believe in the yin and yang of man, but rather in its total depravity. I support the uniqueness of humanity, its difference from the lower animals, but I attribute it not to ourselves, but to a higher power. It is good to seek equality, to understand and accept those different from ourselves, but not willy-nilly or without guidance from above. I will not, as this novel asks me to do, place culture or the idea of equality into the seat of God.
Beyond this, it is simply a well-woven story, enjoyable for that in its own right. Although I have taken it apart somewhat in this review, it need not be picked apart, although for any literate reader, its assumptions and assertions are clear, if one wishes to see them. Its challenges are good; its answers to them leave the reader with a vague sense of something missing, as if the story were not really complete.
I will recommend this book to you, dear reader, as an excellently crafted work of fiction. Do not accept its assumptions without forethought, and beware its overly simplistic answers. Learn its challenges, for we all face these, and understand the strength of friendships in its words, for we all need these.
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Glory Road
tags:
Science Fiction
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy
Pub. Date: March 2006
Format: Paperback, 319pp
Publisher: Tor Books
Not to be confused with the movie of the same name, this Glory Road refers to the trials and tribulations of one Oscar Gordon, an American ex-soldier who finds himself on a journey with the most beautiful (and powerful) woman in twenty universes (although he never seems to know what is really going on).
Glory Road is one of Heinlein’s comedic works. Think Princess Bride meets Spaceballs and you will get the idea. Heinlein writes a swashbuckling tale that is part fantasy, part science fiction, and part cultural treatise. Written in 1963, Heinlein used Glory Road to poke fun at the culture around him. Ultimately, I would classify this work as a satire. Although most of Heinlein’s works are very serious, this one is not. It is a quick read that explores the sexual revolution just then dawning. A large portion of the book is given over to the discussion of sex and cultural values in relation to them.
Not a spectacular work, but one that is fun just to take to your favorite chair and laugh with. I giggled often as I read it. It is truly a writer at the top of his craft just having fun with language and the world that was changing rapidly around him.
I caveat my recommendation with the fact that sex is the primary topic of this work, and so is not for young readers. It is anything but tasteful, although it is not graphic.
Read this in between works of more serious nature, to allow you to laugh at the world so many find depressing.
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