Story Musing: Contact by Carl Sagan

 

Contact

by Carl Sagan

Our thematic book club chose books that were on the bestseller list in 1985 as a theme. Somewhat of a narrow window but an interesting challenge.

When looking at the lists, a couple that I haven’t read stood out for me – The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Contact by Carl Sagan. I decided to go with Contact and continue my science fiction reading, albeit between healthy doses of murder mystery. I’m also listening to the Miss Marple novels and stories by Agatha Christie, in order.

Contact is a hard science novel about, of course, first contact with an alien species from another world. However, it doesn’t jump to that point of contact the way so many other stories do.

This novel is backstory heavy in a way I don’t think most publishers would allow today. I’ve often heard it said that one could easily cut the first three chapters of any book and not miss them. I think that was exceptionally true here. Perhaps a few bits and pieces would go into the book further on, but I really don’t think we needed the main character’s childhood and teen years then her first job to really appreciate the rest.

The first chapter is in fact very short, just a few pages, and features a few vignettes about Ellie, from her birth and into her childhood, including the death of her father, and her mother remarrying to a man Ellie actively dislikes. The second chapter continues Ellie’s childhood and then to college and on to graduate school and her first jobs.

There’s a great deal of speculation about what first contact might be like, how an alien species might perceive humans. Would we be like ants to them?

Chapter 3 begins with a picture of Ellie in her late thirties entering the Project Argus administration building, “Project Argus was the largest facility in the world dedicated to the radio search for extraterrestrial intelligence.” Later, the story shows us Ellie, driving fast into the desert in her Thunderbird during the night to relieve her stress and restlessness. Though we are often exhorted to show and not tell in writing, this all seemed a bit excessive.

Chapter four finally brings the first message from beyond the Earth and sets up for the political machinations that take up a huge part of the rest of the book.

Slowly, ever so slowly, a message takes shape, and they realize it is instructions to build a machine. For what? They don’t know. And so there is widespread disagreement on whether the machine should be built, and even who this message is from.

I actually liked this book – from the characters to some of the political machinations, and the eventual first meeting with the aliens. I just felt it could have been tightened up considerably. The back story in the beginning could have been peppered into the story at appropriate points in a way that would have been much more effective.

The scientists from different countries make an interesting, multicultural cast. The Russian scientist Vaygay is particularly delightful, with his philosophical considerations. The presidents are interesting characters as the novel spans years. I even liked the evangelist Palmer Joss. And though I found the slow movement and extensive backstory annoying at times, perhaps that was part of the point – that first contact could take considerable time instead of someone showing up on our doorstep unexpectedly. It’s certainly a different way of considering the possibility.

The way Sagan went with the ending, and the presentation with the aliens was . . . pleasant. Comfortable. Perhaps a bit too comfortable for modern sensibilities? Nevertheless, I enjoyed it.

This book certainly captured the minds and imaginations of people from 1985 onward for a good chunk of time. Just the fact that it is still available in the public library is an accolade in itself.

If you tolerate slow, character driven, stories well, I would definitely recommend this one.

Storymusing on TVA Baby and Other Stories by Terry Bisson

 

TVA Baby and Other Stories 

by Terry Bisson

For the month of June our Thematic Book Club went with the concept of “The Future.” It was no problem choosing a book this month as I have a number of science fiction books sitting on my shelf at home that I’ve requested over the years for gifts.

The author Terry Bisson first caught my attention with a humorous award winning short story, “They’re Made Out of Meat.” It’s told from the perspective of two aliens watching humans. They are grossed out by the fact human bodies are made out of meat. I found it quite hilarious at the time.

I don’t remember when I requested the collection, TVA Baby, but it must have been in a book review magazine I read at work. I put the book on my wish list and it came to me one holiday as a gift.

I picked it up expecting straight up science fiction. It turned out to be what I’ve learned to call more speculative fiction — somewhere between science fiction and tall tales. Some are inspiring, some are kind of depressing, but most are thought provoking in one way or another.

To be honest, the first story in the collection, TVA Baby, left me wondering if I really wanted to read this collection. It seemed like a cross between a macho action story of the John D. MacDonald variety and a singularly ruthless Murdoch from the A-Team.

Private Eye slowed things down and had more of a Philip Marlowe meets the ennui of the future just trying to get by. I found it much more interesting and enjoyable.

Pirates of the Somali Coast again had me wondering if I really wanted to read this book? The young main character dances without reality through a bloody pirate take over of his cruise ship. It seems to ask the question, what if a child really could not tell the difference between video games and reality? A problem I have never seen in a child, to be honest, though I suppose there may be a few out there who really couldn’t tell the difference.

The Stamp was one of the shortest but also one of the more interesting, featuring a boy who had purchased some stamps for his brother’s birthday that showed things which hadn’t happened yet. The identity of the two children makes it all the more interesting.

Catch ‘Em in the Act was intriguing if a bit gritty. A young man gets a hold of a video camera that claims to help the viewer stop crimes, but actually seems to make people do things they wouldn’t otherwise consider until he viewed them through it. A bit Supernatural and rather interesting to see where it led.

The rest of the stories were at different turns sad and lovely, absurd and cringe-worthy, inventive, bland, crude, and thought provoking.

Brother Can You Spare a Dime was one of the most interesting and creative of the stories in this collection. It starts with a homeless man who is being pushed along by the police. The homeless man finds himself transported to the future and realizes the dimes have his face on them. He comes to the conclusion that he must do something in the past worthy of the honor of having his face on the money which brings about the beautiful future and returns to his own time. I do love a good time travel story, and I love any story with a good twist ending, as this one goes on to have.

Overall, I did not enjoy every story, but they were definitely thought provoking and made my brain consider new avenues of thought that helped me start working on one of my own stories again. Venture in at your own risk.

Book Musing: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

 

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

by Michael Chabon

I came across an article a little over a week ago that suggested 10 books that anyone who loves science fiction ought to read as they had won both the Nebula and the Hugo awards. I immediately added them to my Goodreads list.

I honestly can’t remember where I saw it, but here is one such list - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/the-novels-that-won-both-the-hugo-and-nebula-awards-ranked/

Connie Willis and Joe Haldeman are both familiar names from their short stories in Nebula award collections, but I’d never read a Michael Chabon before.

The Yiddish Policeman’s Union immediately appealed to me, perhaps because I spent so much time watching Seinfeld as a teen and perhaps because I have always had a fascination with Jewish culture as someone who was raised in upstate New York.

I’ve also enjoyed hard-boiled detective fiction since my late teens, which led me to take a course in Detective Fiction in college. This is right up there with them. Detective Landsman is both incorrigible and self-destructive, single-minded, and fumbling his way in the dark. It’s a characterization of fascinating contrasts.

This is an alternate history but not much of a “science” fiction otherwise. The setting is Sitka, Alaska, where a sixty year temporary haven for Jewish people was set up after World War II. It opens as the area is about to undergo “Reversion” when the government takes back the land. The residents have to either apply for permission to stay or find somewhere else to go.

Detective Meyer Landsman, the main character, is living in a long term stay hotel, drinking his life away. The manager comes and gets him when another tenant is found dead. Landsman quickly deduces that this was not an accidental death.

Landsman is a divorced police detective and the police department is about to be taken out of Jewish control as well. His ex-wife, Bina Gelbfish, is placed in charge of his department. He and his half Tlingit, half Jewish partner, Berko Shemets, are ordered to make a good faith attempt to clear up any outstanding cases, then a bad faith attempt, and finally to simply mark them as cold cases.

Landsman is not about to go gently into the good night though. The connections that get made along the way are great action-adventure writing, there’s a little schmaltz and plenty of heart, and the prose that caries you along is first rate.

The omniscient narrator is not all that common in a lot of what I read, but allows for a depth of description that you don’t find in much genre fiction. It gets into the perceptions and thoughts of a multitude of characters. The descriptions are lengthy and literary in their parallels, but also very often amusing, which is fairly common with noir detective fiction.

The prose is beautiful – so many times I was struck by the incongruity and yet correctness of the metaphors he used to describe things. Some might eschew it as too flowery but I loved it. I went and put several more of his books on my Goodreads list. It’s a book that takes a long time to get where it’s going but I loved every minute of the drive. (Yes, I also prefer to drive on secondary roads instead of highways.)

Are the characters sometimes a little too ridiculous? Yes, sure. The two main Tlingit characters we run into are both police officers with one being tall and extremely heavy set while the other is a mere four foot nothing. As the only characters we hear much of who are Tlingit, it’s a little too absurd.

I’ve seen a lot of positive reviews for this book, some lukewarm ones, and some downright negative, but that just recommends a book to me. When you get a good spread of opinions about a book, it generally means there’s going to be a lot to engage with, and this is no different. There’s a particular style here that people may or may not like. I loved it.

Chabon is one of those authors who both makes me feel small and insignificant as an author and also inspires me to want to write more and better. His first novel came out to some acclaim when he was twenty-four and it seems he has been writing hard and fast, but mostly steadily, ever since.  

It’s a first rate, rollicking, fascinating, gorgeously written book. I highly recommend.

Oh, and the reader who brings the audio to life is wonderful, allowing me to get the intonation in my head that I never would have gotten just by reading it.

Book Review: Artemis by Andy Weir

 

Artemis

by Andy Weir

This month, the theme for my book club is a whole genre, science fiction. I admit I haven’t been reading much of that lately, but a friend reminded me that one of my favorite science fiction author in recent years, Andy Weir, had a new book out recently. (I talked about his book, The Martian, on this blog some time ago, you can find that post at https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-martian-by-andy-weir.html ) My library doesn’t have his newest, Project Hail Mary, available in digital format yet, but they did have his second book, Artemis, which I had not read either.

Artemis is a fascinating story set on the moon in a settlement where people live in bubbles, and far underground. The main character, Jazz Bashara, is a young woman who workers as a porter, and as a smuggler. The story is told in the first person from her perspective and her voice is fantastically distinctive.

“Whatever it was, I couldn’t find any mention of it online. That meant it was a secret. Now I really wanted to know what it was. Turns out I’m a nosy little shit.”

By her own admission, Jazz has made some pretty poor choices in her young life, and it is her propensity for making such decisions that drives this story forward. It seems perfectly logical at the time, as she relates the story, but we can see her life going off the rails. She’s a little bit of an anti-hero, but she has her own standards and sense of honor. She won’t take payment for a job not completed.

Jazz has been smuggling stuff people need for a while, but here she takes on a different job, much more complex, with dangers she has no idea exist. Every time I turned around, this book morphed on me into a slightly different story. There are revelations about things that happened in the past through letters with her pen pal on Earth, and revelations about things Jazz doesn’t know yet. I love twists and turns in stories.

Another thing I love about Weir’s writing is how he works explanations of fairly complex science into the narrative by creating a question in the reader’s mind that he then answers in fairly conversational language through his narrator. It makes it so much more accessible and interesting than the information dump that writers are often prone to in trying to set up a reader for a situation.

The setting itself is complex and fascinating. The gravity is 1/6^th that of the Earth and they have a terrible nutritional food named gunk. Then there’s the whole issue of how oxygen is created, which plays a central part in the story.

This one is compulsively readable and I highly recommend it.

Book Review: Ready Player Two

 

Ready Player Two

by Ernest Cline

There were many things I enjoyed in this book, but I can’t say that the first 30% of the book held any of them.

I realize that the author was giving the story that happened between the first book and the current one, building the bridge, but it felt like the story didn’t even begin until 30% of the way in. From my perspective, the first thirty percent of the book could have been seriously condensed, at least in half. And, honestly, there seemed a lot more telling than showing throughout the book. It just didn’t seem as immediate or make me feel invested.

I was so excited to get this book, and maybe that’s part of the problem. Sometimes we hype things up in our mind, like a movie, then it simply can’t live up to our expectations. In the end I did enjoy the book, but it took a while to get into it.

There were MANY parts I did enjoy, such as the John Hughes films portion. This harkened back to the 80s nostalgia of the first book, as well as the planet of the artist formerly known as Prince. I really appreciated the development of Aech’s story there. The thread of Kira and Ogden Morrow’s love throughout the book was lovely.

I was a little surprised by the use of J.R.R. Tolkien’s works, because it wasn’t an 80’s creation, but it was so incredibly important in the development of D&D and then the online gaming that grew out of that, that it really made sense.

If you enjoyed the first book, then this one is worth reading, but you may have to slog through the first part to get to the good stuff.

Review of Wanderers: A Novel by Chuck Wendig

Wanderers: A Novel

by Chuck Wendig

It’s been a few months since I read this book so the question is – what stuck with me? It was an interesting read, clearly inspired by the concerns of our current day.

In Wanderers, the environment is going downhill fast and there is a fair certainty that eventually it’s going to hit a wall and people are going to die. It’s a fair bet that the next big epidemic is going to take out a fair number of people. But where will it start and how will it proceed?

It begins with the sleepwalkers. One day someone just starts walking. One by one, others join them. If someone tries to detain them, they explode. They seem to be bullet proof, or very nearly so. They are accompanied by family members and friends who try to care for them without impeding their progress. I liked how Wendig took this down to the personal level, letting us meet these people and their caregivers instead of just talking about the phenomenon. We start with one sleepwalker, her sister, and their journey.

There is a philosophical argument at work here about who deserves to be protected by the law, the people who are walking or the people who live in the areas the walkers pass through? People are reasonably worried that this is being caused by a disease that could spread. Are they suffering this or causing it? Who do we protect?

It’s definitely a dark story. Men do evil things out of fear and hate. Wendig doesn’t really flinch away from describing all the gory details.

Even our hero, Benjamin Ray, is in a state of disgrace as the story begins. He is a former scientist with the CDC. In a moment of clarity or fear, he saw the horrible practices on a factory farm and was sure that it would cause a “zoonotic leap” where the disease leaps from animal to human. He manufactures evidence to shut them down. Like the boy who cried wolf, it backfires and he ends up losing his job.

“Some moments he felt like, I did the right thing, and they punished me for it. In the next moment, the opposite came to him with grave certainty: You lied to suit your agenda, and you deserved worse than you got.”

At the same time, another plague has reared its ugly head. It is fast moving but it spreads before people know they have it. It roots into the brain like a fungus, giving the bearer a hideous white crust around the mouth and upper respiratory distress. The death rate is high and it causes people to act homicidal before they die. Where did it start and how do they stop it?

But the CDC now has an AI computer that anticipates plagues. It anticipated the sleepwalkers, the white mask plague, and it wants Benji on the case. Why? Will the CDC let him?

It’s an ugly story, beautifully told, brutal and pain filled. I couldn’t put it down, all 800 pages of it.

Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress

Beggars in Spain

Nancy Kress

Beggars in Spain is a Hugo and Nebula award-winning complex look at economies and inequalities through a science fiction lens.

Leisha’s father, Roger Camden, bullies the scientists who are pioneering bioengineering, through infiltration of their databases and money, to make his daughter one of the “Sleepless.” His wife is not so enthusiastic but he bullies her into compliance as well.

At roughly the same time the egg is being implanted for Leisha, Mrs. Camden becomes pregnant naturally with Alice. Alice and Leisha are twins, but not remotely alike. Leisha has also been bioengineered to be tall, blond and beautiful. Because she does not sleep, she is able to take advantage of her ability to learn. 

Mrs. Camden loves Alice and abhors Leisha. Roger Camden is cold and manipulative to anyone but Leisha. Eventually he sends Mrs. Camden away and marries the scientist who did the genetic changes for Leisha.

Most people do not like the changes that make babies “Sleepless.” They feel it gives them an unnatural edge in competition. The Sleepless are barred them from many things, like competition in sports or investing. More than that, the “Sleepers” grow to hate the sleepless for being different. Both groups perceive the Sleepless as better.

Some parents don’t think far enough ahead to prepare for having a Sleepless child and when a child doesn’t sleep at night and doesn’t have round the clock nurses, you can guess what happens. Leisha and her friends are party to a couple kidnappings of Sleepless toddlers who are being abused. Unfortunately, one of them is caught and put in jail, where he is murdered by the other inmates, simply because he is a Sleepless.

As things develop, people become more wary, more scared, and angrier at the Sleepless. There’s a whole We-sleep movement trying to grind the Sleepless into the ground or kill them. The few people who are sleepless of Leisha’s generation, recognize the pernicious hatred being sent their way and some of them band together to buy land and create a place called Sanctuary.

Much of the novel deals with economic principles and inequality. Roger Camden is a Yagaist, a follower of Kenzo Yagai. His philosophy, in part, states that “. . . the only dignity, the only spirituality, rests on what a man can achieve with his own efforts. To rob a man of the chance to achieve, and to trade what he achieves with others, is to rob him of his spiritual dignity as a man.”

Leisha finds holes in Yagai’s theories. She finds that trade can be non-linear. “If Stewart gives me something, and I give Stella something, and ten years from now Stella is a different person because of that and gives something to someone else as yet unknown – it’s an ecology. An ecology of trade, yes, each niche needed, even if they’re not contractually bound. Does a horse need a fish? Yes.”

One of the Sleepless tells Leisha of an analogy called the Beggars in Spain, that they will turn on you, rip you apart for what they want if you don’t give it, so you have to cut them off.

But Leisha finds that the whole beggars in Spain analogy falls apart. “Yes, there are beggars in Spain who trade nothing, give nothing, do nothing. But there are more than beggars in Spain. Withdraw from the beggars, you withdraw from the whole damn country. And you withdraw from the possibility of the ecology of help . . . Beggars need to help as well as be helped.”

A fascinating book, and not too heavy handed for the all the heavy topics it deals with. I highly recommend it.

The Memory Painter by Gwendolyn Womack

The Memory Painter

by Gwendolyn Womack

I really liked the premise of this novel –  Bryan paints scenes from his dreams, but they aren’t like normal dreams. It is as if he is remembering his own life.

These dreams, and the aftermath, are very hard on him both physically and mentally. They tire him, make him sick and confused. After the dreams, he is often able to speak the language of the person he was in the dream, fluently. The people in his dreams can also be verified to have existed, historically. He becomes quite certain that these are past lives but integrating and yet separating them from the present takes time.

Then Bryan meets Linz. He has an instant affinity for her and, by concentrating, he can see who she was in his past life. She was in all of them.

Finally, a past life comes to light which shows how this all started.

In the 1980s, Bryan and a small group of researchers were working on a medication to unlock memories for Alzheimer’s patients. The researchers take the medication and because they are healthy, it unlocks past lives. Another little catch - though this happened in a previous life, it seems to carry over into the present one.

Also, Bryan and his wife in that life are killed in a lab explosion.

Some people are still living from this previous life while some people have died and been reincarnated. Sorting out who is a danger and who is an ally can be a bit precarious.

I enjoyed this book, but had a little of an ambivalent reaction to it. I felt that it both went on a little too long and also was not in depth enough. It was very action oriented and I felt that perhaps the author could have focused on a few less scenes and given them more depth.

In trying to capture the breadth of the history the two characters had, I think she tried to pack too many lives in. They were interesting, but too much is too much.

I still enjoyed it a good deal and would give it 3 stars. It didn’t quite live up to my expectations but I don’t feel like I wasted my time reading it.

The Martian by Andy Weir

The Martian

By Andy Weir

Now, if you were left behind on Mars by your crewmates and knew you had to wait for the next planned Mars expedition, in FOUR years, would you even try to survive? Or would you assume there was no way in hell for that to happen?

 “So, that’s the situation. I’m stranded on Mars. I have no way to communicate with Hermes or Earth. Everyone thinks I’m dead. I’m in a Hab designed to last thirty-one days. If the oxygenator breaks down, I’ll suffocate. If the water reclaimer breaks down, I’ll die of thirst. If the Hab breaches, I’ll just kind of explode. If none of those things happens, I’ll eventually run out of food and starve to death. So yeah, I’m fucked.”

So why doesn’t he just take the easy way out? Well, at the moment, he’s alone but he has everything he needs. He’s in no hurry. The thing is - he’s someone who rises to challenges and likes to figure things out, so he wants to do that. He figures out how much soil he’ll need and how to turn the soil he has, plus his own shit along with Martian soil, into something he can grow crops in.

 “This isn’t a new concept I just came up with. People have speculated on how to make crop soil out of Martian dirt for decades. I’ll just be putting it to the test for the first time. But in the end, if everything goes to plan, I’ll have 92 square meters of crop-able soil. Hell yeah I’m a botanist! Fear my botany powers!”

Mark Watney is pretty smart but he’s also totally an extrovert, the class clown, the one who provides the lubricant between all the really smart introverts. He’s also an extrovert who only has his journal to talk to.

I think that’s part of why he comes across as more of a real person to me, not a type. We all have geeky sides, and sporty sides and act like kids at times, and get excited and angry and scared.  

 “I’ve been so busy staying alive I never thought of what this must be like for my parents. Right now, they’re suffering the worst pain anyone can endure. I’d give anything just to let them know I’m still alive. I’ll just have to survive to make up for it.”

He’s stuck with thumb drives of things his shipmates brought for entertainment.  

“Disco. God damn it, Lewis.”

A large part of the book is him reacting to problems, thinking through them and coming up with a solution. He’s so perfectly imperfect. Like any good hero, he causes his own trouble, and he laughs at himself so well.

“Turns out the “L” in “LCD” stands for “Liquid.” I guess it either froze or boiled off. Maybe I’ll post a consumer review. “Brought product to surface of Mars. It stopped working. 0/10.”

Right, who knew? Um, everyone.

My biggest criticism is that I felt like the ending was abrupt. We’re rocking along then . . . boom, it’s done. I feel like the author should have given us a little more warning that THIS was the goal. Oh well.

It’s a FUN book. Try not to take it too seriously. It is action, and science, and humor. I really, really liked it.

Sixth Grave on the Edge (Charley Davidson Series) by Darynda Jones

Sixth Grave on the Edge

By Darynda Jones

Well, I’ve been in heaven the past week. First, Darynda Jones released her latest novel in the Charley Davidson series, Sixth Grave on the Edge, and I inhaled that in about two and a half days. As a side note, I would like to say how much I appreciate the Amazon Kindle’s ability to dim the screen so I could read while my sick child dozed on my lap.

Then Jim Butcher released the latest in the Harry Dresden Chronicles, Skin Game, and I am currently enjoying that tremendously. It was a particularly welcome distraction yesterday while I was waiting for two new tires to be put on my car because I got a roofing nail in the sidewall of one.  How does that even happen?

Anyway, the thing that I love about both of these characters is that even though the series is ongoing, the main characters continue to grow and change. There are plenty of surprises! I’m going to try not to give anything away, but the last surprise in Sixth Grave on the Edge rocked my socks. I absolutely LOVED it!

This was a bit lighter and more fun than some have been, though there are some pretty scary bits. Lots of time with Reyes with this one, some more background on him, and some interesting subterfuge with her father. There is definitely something going on with her dad.

I can never decide if Charley is really good at self-delusion or if her ADHD just makes it easier for her to skip over some things. I don’t think it will be really giving anything away to say that her Jeep, Misery, didn’t make it through the last novel.

“But at least Misery was okay. Like, really okay. It was weird. Her cough was gone. Her sluggish response time was no longer an issue. Her reluctance to wake up in the mornings as she sputtered in protest every time I tried to fire all engines was nonexistent.”

Hmmm… I wonder why?

Lots of interesting dead people popping up, like naked dead guy. I particularly enjoyed it when his wife showed up looking for him. Aunt Lil, of the blue hair and floral muumuu, is always a joy.  I love her idea of becoming a partner with Charley in the investigation business, though it didn’t seem to go anywhere in this book. Of course, young Angel is summoned up to help, though there is a big surprise waiting there!

Remember the old saying, “It’s all fun and games until somebody loses an eye?” Yeah, that seems to apply to Charley’s scheme to get Uncle Bob to finally ask Cookie out on a date.

One of the things I like about Darynda Jones writing is that there’s a balance. One minute you’re galloping along at a good clip, laughing joyously, then she hits you with the serious and you feel the character’s pain. That’s life. Then you have a mission and some humor to lighten the load. Well done.

I’d recommend these books to anyone who enjoys a good mystery, can go with the supernatural angle, and doesn’t blush too terribly easily. As always, you can get this at the library, but I couldn’t wait. I got it through Amazon Kindle and then added the audio, which is perfectly read by Lorelei King.

Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein

Job: A Comedy of Justice

By Robert A. Heinlein

         

I guess you could say I’m going back to my roots by choosing a science fiction title today. I grew up in a small town with a small library.  I certainly can’t claim to have read everything in the library and my interests shifted over time.  As a teen, mysteries became my main focus, with authors like Agatha Christie and Phyllis Whitney. Then I was introduced to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and it became my mainstay for many years.  

I still admire Madeleine L’Engle’s writing tremendously. I distinctly remember my father giving me a copy of Dune by Frank Herbert when I was a teenager and I discovered many more wonderful authors on the shelves of the public library in the town where I went to college. I think I read most of the books by Robert A. Heinlein over time and this was a favorite.

         

(All right, I have to share this one - as I sat here at the Reference desk writing this review, a patron asked me about the book and asked to be put on the waiting list for it so I gave it to her. Apparently she had read and enjoyed many of his books and this sounded interesting to her. Ha!)

         

Anyway, Job: A Comedy of Justice is a modern retelling of the story of Job. Job, in the person of Alexander Hergensheimer, seems to be a shining of example of faith. As in the original story of Job, Satan argues with God, who agrees to test Job.

         

Suddenly Alex finds himself living someone else's life, with a mistress, not the sort of thing a fundamentalist minister was brought up to. Then he falls in love with her.

Heinlein had a way of telling a great adventure story that is easy to read, told in the first person with a rollicking pace.

"His automobile was a triumph of baling wire and faith. We went roaring back to the dock at full throttle, frightening chickens and easily outrunning baby goats."

He also offers a tremendous amount of food for thought that is subtly inserted to this great adventure story. In my lifetime, Science Fiction has been a bastion of such thought provoking writing. Heinlein was truly a Grand Master of the genre. I highly recommend it.

The Time Traveler's Wife ~ Audrey Niffenegger

The Time Traveler's Wife
By Audrey Niffenegger

Henry first met Clare when he was 28 years old and Clare was 20, but Clare first met Henry fourteen years earlier when she was 6.  He was 36 years old at the time.  You see, Henry suffers with Chrono-Displacement Disorder.  He suddenly disappears out of his timeline and can be dropped down anywhere, at any time, without clothes or money to sustain him. 

Henry isn’t a saint.  Being dropped down anywhere and anywhen without anything to wear has led to some skills at theft to clothe and feed himself.  This, in turn, has led to multiple arrest warrants being issued.  His saving grace is that he has no identification so if he is caught, he simply waits until he is pulled into a new place and time.  Houdini had nothing on Henry.

Henry’s first experience being displaced is when he is 5.  He finds himself back in the Field Museum of Natural History, which he had not wanted to leave earlier in the day.  Luckily, he has a wonderful guide, himself!  Though he doesn’t know it. 

How would you act if this happened to you?  How would you explain things? To strangers?  To people you love?  How would it affect your relationships? 

This isn’t an easy book.  At one point Clare is abused by a male classmate and Henry helps her to teach him a lesson.  I picked up this book expecting somewhat of a fluffy romantic comedy but found much more.  I highly recommend it.

Science Fiction and the Nebula Awards

I’ve always been a fan of Science Fiction. I don’t remember what sparked my interest. Perhaps it was my older brothers, listening to Star Wars and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on the radio and watching Dr. Who on television. My father gave me a copy of Dune when I was around seventh or eighth grade because my oldest brother had introduced him to it, and he thought I might like it. It became one of my favorites.

When I went to college, I found that the local public library had a wonderful collection of science fiction and fantasy. I think it was there that I discovered Steven Brust’s Cowboy Feng’s Space Bar and Grill and Spider Robinson’s Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon series.

There are a wide variety of sub genre’s when it comes to Sci-fi. Some science fiction deals with hard sciences and soft sciences, like physics and anthropology respectively. Time travel and alternate histories may comprise some of the earliest science fiction, with H.G. Wells The Time Machine. There are space westerns like Joss Whedon’s Serenity, based on the short lived Firefly series. Apocalyptic fiction has always been of intense interest and that doesn’t seem to be slowing down, particularly as we are now in 2012, the end of the longest cycle in the Mayan calendar.

My reading interests have expanded and I don’t read as much science fiction these days. There’s less time in my schedule for reading and what I do read is spread over more genres. I decided to go for a browse through our library’s science fiction and fantasy section to see if something leapt off the shelf at me.

A series of books that I remember fondly from my time in college is the Nebula Award series. Each book offered up a feast of different science fiction and fantasy stories. They nourished me then and continue to influence me in subtle ways. The Night We Buried Road Dog by Jack Cady, the 1993 novella winner, lives on in my memory almost like a ghost. At the Rialto by Connie Willis, 1989 best novelette, plays like a wisp of music in my mind. Bears Discover Fire by Terry Bisson, 1991 best short story, chuckles gently somewhere in the night.

I picked up the Nebula Awards 27, edited by James Morrow, which offers a selection of the award winners and nominees for 1991. Some titles jumped out at me, though I don’t remember much about the stories. Standing in Line with Mr. Jimmy by James Patrick Kelly, They’re Made out of Meat by Terry Bisson, Precessing the Simulacra for Fun and Profit by Bruce Sterling and Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress, all jogged a memory.

Standing in Line with Mr. Jimmy by James Patrick Kelly introduces Chip. He’s a small time junkie with a yen for flash but he’s been caught on a parole violation and is being sent to work on a road gang in Mexico. A mysterious man offers him a way out but can’t tell him what’s at the other end of the line. Can Jimmy think fast enough to find an alternative to Mexico and the end of the line?

They’re Made Out of Meat by Terry Bisson is a funny little story told entirely in dialogue between two space exploring beings discussing the fact that humans (a.k.a. “sentient meat”) want to make contact. They quickly decide against it and leave.

Precessing the Simulacra for Fun and Profit by Bruce Sterling is not actually a science fiction story at all, but rather an essay about the author’s experiences with literary criticism as a member of the outcast science fiction writing crowd.

In Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress, genetic engineering makes it possible to choose many facets of a child before they are even born, including turning off the need to sleep. There doesn’t seem to be a down side to the difference, but as Leisha grows up, a significant divide develops between the “sleepers” and “sleepless.” Is mutant too strong a word?

The wonderful thing about the Nebula Award books is that they let you experience different writers and different sub-genres of science fiction in a compact format, and an award winning one at that. This, theoretically, is the cream of the crop. It is called speculative fiction for a reason. Pick one up and give your brain some food for thought.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
By Douglas Adams

Few people realize that The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was actually first written as a radio series and broadcast starting in 1978 on BBC radio.  The first book didn’t come out until fall of 1979.  Since then, it has had a long and varied life.  (If you’ve seen the modern movie, please don’t judge it by that.  While it’s entertaining to some degree, it comes nowhere near the brilliance and humor of the radio series or book.)

Of course, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is also a book within the book.  Its major selling point is that on the front of it, in large friendly letters, is written Don’t Panic.  The guide is quoted frequently. 

It includes tips on the use of a towel for interstellar travel, such as wetting it for hand-to-hand combat, or wrapping it around your head to “avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you – daft as a brush, but very, very ravenous.” 

Or the entry which mentions how ballpoint pens escape, “… it was to this planet that unattended ballpoints would make their way, slipping away quietly through wormholes in space to a world where they knew they could enjoy a uniquely ballpointoid life-style, responding to highly ballpoint-oriented stimuli, and generally leading the ballpoint equivalent of the good life.”

The story begins on Earth.

“This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time.  Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”

Things get better, but only momentarily.

“...one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place.  This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.”  Sadly, the Earth is demolished before she can get to a phone.

Before the actual demolition, our antiheroes make their appearance.  Arthur Dent is having a really bad day.  He’s just found out that his house is slated to be demolished to make way for a bypass.  Then he finds out his best friend, Ford Prefect, is not even from Earth and the Earth is slated to be demolished for an interstellar bypass.  Luckily he and Ford manage to hitch a ride on the ship come to do the job.  Of course, they later get tossed off the ship but they do, very improbably, get picked up by Ford’s distant cousin Zaphod and his girlfriend Trillian. 

Zaphod has stolen the ship they are on, which runs on the Infinite Improbability Drive. This drive causes very improbable things to happen when in use, such as calling into existence a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias high over a planet. 

Trillian is also a girl who Arthur, very improbably, happened to hit on at a party years before when her name was Tricia McMillan.  Along with an incredibly depressed robot named Marvin, “And then of course I’ve got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side,” they go in search of legendary Magrathea, where Earth was planned and built, paid for by the hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings Earthlings know as mice. 

Full of humor and pithy sayings, like “Time is an illusion.  Lunchtime doubly so,” this is not the type of book that you will ever pick up and wonder if you’ve already read it.  It is the type of book you will want to read again though.

The library offers both the books and the original radio drama on CD.  Though containing the same main story, they are different enough that I highly recommend checking out both.  My husband and I took the CDs for a very enjoyable ride to Massachusetts and back one year.