Book of the Week

Just when I'm ready to give up on Ben Elton, he goes and writes an excellent alternative history novel like Time and Time Again. Kinda takes all the fun out of dissing him...

Quote of the Week

What the hell is nostalgia doing in a science-fiction film? With the whole universe and all the future to play in, Lucas took his marvelous toys and crawled under the fringed cloth on the parlor table, back into a nice safe hideyhole, along with Flash Gordon and the Cowardly Lion and Luck Skywalker and the Flying Aces and the Hitler Jugend. If there’s a message there, I don’t think I want to hear it.
--Ursula K. Le Guin, repr. in Dancing at the Edge of the World (1989). “Close Encounters, Star Wars, and the Tertium Quid,” Future, Aug. 1978

Quote of the Week

Look, without our stories, without the true nature and reality of who we are as People of Color, nothing about fanboy or fangirl culture would make sense. What I mean by that is: if it wasn't for race, X-Men doesn't make sense. If it wasn't for the history of breeding human beings in the New World through chattel slavery, Dune doesn't make sense. If it wasn't for the history of colonialism and imperialism, Star Wars doesn't make sense. If it wasn't for the extermination of so many Indigenous First Nations, most of what we call science fiction’s contact stories doesn't make sense. Without us as the secret sauce, none of this works, and it is about time that we understood that we are the Force that holds the Star Wars universe together. We’re the Prime Directive that makes Star Trek possible, yeah. In the Green Lantern Corps, we are the oath. We are all of these things -- erased, and yet without us —- we are essential.
--Junot Díaz

Quote of the Week

Since I began to publish in 1962, I have often been asked, by people of all colors, what my experience of racial prejudice in the science fiction field has been. Has it been nonexistent? By no means: It was definitely there. A child of the political protests of the '50s and '60s, I've frequently said to people who asked that question: As long as there are only one, two, or a handful of us, however, I presume in a field such as science fiction, where many of its writers come out of the liberal-Jewish tradition, prejudice will most likely remain a slight force —- until, say, black writers start to number thirteen, fifteen, twenty percent of the total. At that point, where the competition might be perceived as having some economic heft, chances are we will have as much racism and prejudice here as in any other field.

We are still a long way away from such statistics.

But we are certainly moving closer.
--Samuel R. Delany, "Racism and Science Fiction"

Book of the Week

As I noted before, my real-life surname is actually Mendoza but somehow I doubt that this novel is about me or any of my paternal relatives. However, it would be nice to think so!

Talk About Your Misleading Titles!

It would be nice if this novel was about that fictional being that we science fiction fans normally think of when we hear the words "the doctor" but it is not. Rats!

Book of the Week

I was hoping to feature a book that was more in the Halloween spirit as this week's book of the week, but in light of recent events, this book -- Connie Willis' novel Doomsday Book -- seemed more appropriate. After all, Connie Willis' account of a young female time traveler who finds herself accidentally stranded at an English manor that has been afflicted by the Black Plague manages to be both depressing and inspiring, scary and yet hopeful. And given the news one so often sees on TV as of late, one can't ask for more than that.

I once read the novel for my science fiction reading group back around the year 2000 and such is the power of its story that every few years, I return to it. Moreover, there is something all too timely about Ms. Willis' vision of the plague years. In her view, it was not necessarily the most noble or most courageous who survived the plague; all too often, it was merely the most cowardly and the most selfish who survived. Not that Ms. Willis had any intention of encouraging us to identify with the knaves and the cowards of Plague-Era England; indeed, she makes it quite obvious that she identifies with the doomed but goodhearted far more than she does the selfish survivors. But she is as much a realist as she is a romantic and it is the very fact that she is not afraid to give her heroes and heroines flaws that helps make her novel so readable.

Given the fact that we live in an age where all too many people think it is witty to send e-mails that suggest that the best cure for the Ebola virus is a M-4 rifle, I would like to think we need all the people like Ms. Willis that we can get.

Northwest Smith

Long before there was Indiana Jones, there was... Northwest Smith. A sci fi hero who has yet to get his just desserts from a generation allegedly obsessed with all things sci-fi. He first appeared in the C. L. Moore short story "Shambleau", which appeared in the November 1933 issue of the magazine Weird Tales.

Spanish Science Fiction Terms

1. agujero de gusano -- wormhole.
2. androide -- android; robot made in the form of a human.
3. animación suspendida -- suspended animation.
4. antiguos astronautas -- ancient astronauts.
5. ciberespacio -- cyberspace.
6. ciborg -- cyborg.
7. ciencia ficción -- science fiction.
8. científico -- scientist.
9. científico loco -- mad scientist.
10. clonación -- cloning.
11. cohete -- rocket.
12. computadora -- computer.
13. extraterrestre -- alien; extraterrestrial.
14. ginoide -- gynoid; fembot; android made in the form of a human female.
15. hiperespacio -- hyperspace.
16. historia alternativa -- alternative history.
17. hombrecillos verdes -- little green men.
18. marciano -- Martian.
19. monstruo de ojos de insecto -- bug-eyed monster.
20. mutante -- mutant.
21. píldora roja y píldora azul -- red pill and blue pill.
22. pirata espacial -- space pirate.
23. plativolo -- flying saucer; UFO.
24. regeneración -- regeneration.
25. replicante -- replicant.
26. robot -- robot.
27. tiempo curvo -- time warp.
28. universo espejo -- mirror universe.
29. universo paralelo -- parallel universe.
30. venusiano -- Venusian.
31. visión de rayos X -- X-ray vision.

Ay, Robot!

I didn't realize how long it had been since I read Isaac Asimov's science fiction novel The Naked Sun until I came across a nude scene in the book and I found myself thinking, "I don't remember that." Since I was a teenager when I first read the book, I can't help wondering whether I was just too young to appreciate the scene in question the first time I read the book -- which seems unlikely -- or else it was something I missed because I was reading the Asimov robot stories on the literary equivalent of a forced march.

In any event, the scene in question seems pretty tame by today's standards. Indeed, both of Asimov's first two robot novels--The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun -- seem pretty tame by today's standards though given that the last book was published in 1957, it would be pretty surprising if they weren't. Anyway, the two books revolve around human detective Elijah Baley and his robot partner R. Daneel Olivaw. As you might guess, the "R" in Olivaw's name stands for "robot" and it's one of the more refreshing elements of the two books that though Olivaw often downplays the fact that he is a robot in the course of his investigations, he never acts out of character for a robot except when his job requires him to imitate a human being -- and even then, he never acts contrary to his programming like many fictional robots in more recent works do.

Both novels are set in a future wherein Earth's society is having to adjust to an increasing number of robots -- and the subsequent problems caused by them -- as well as having to adjust to the Spacers, former Earth colonists who have gone out to found an empire in space that is more powerful than the forces of the planet Earth. In both novels, Baley and Olivaw have to solve a difficult murder mystery which could cause dire consequences for the planet Earth -- and of course, for Elijah Baley -- if left unsolved. In the first book, a Spacer diplomat is murdered on Earth, a world of few robots and many humans. In the second, another Spacer is murdered on Solaria, a world of many robots and few humans. Of the two books, the first novel plays the most fair with the reader -- so fair, in fact, that one might easily guess the culprit before any other suspects are introduced. The second book, on the other hand, cheats a bit by deliberately obscuring the identity of the true killer until after a far worse fiend has been exposed by Baley and Olivaw.

Both books are satisfying reads from both a sci-fi and a mystery point-of-view -- though those of you who thought that author Philip K. Dick invented the idea of investigating -- and obscuring -- the differences between robots and humans might be a trifle miffed. For that matter, those feminists who have traditionally given the late Isaac Asimov grief over the characterization of his Susan Calvin character in the "Robots, Inc." short stories aren't likely to be pleased that a key point in The Naked Sun involves proving that a female character wasn't quite clever enough to prove a suitable student for a male murder suspect. Oh, well. Even mighty Homer nods every now and again so it should be no surprise that the more prolific Isaac slips up as well. Then again it would be interesting to see how many novels written today will hold up equally well half a century from now. And given the more laughable stuff that gets depicted in more recent works like the 1987 movie Robocop, the flaws in the Elijah Baley books hardly seem worth mentioning.

Book of the Week

Given the popularity that the alternative history genre has had among American readers for at least two decades now, it was probably inevitable that we get a novel that attempted to tell an alternative history of the 9/11 attack. Indeed, I am a bit surprised that it took this long.

Author Matt Ruff, of course, doesn't just stop there. He also gives us readers a surprisingly convincing account of a world where the Muslims in the Middle East are an united people who dominate the globe and the Americans are a bunch of disunited political entities who are rebelling against foreign occupation -- an occupation which is being carried out, naturally, by the -- ahem -- Muslims.

Ruff's novel isn't quite science fiction -- towards the end, he brings in an element of obvious fantasy that most readers might wish to take with a grain of salt -- but it is interesting and entertaining. It even includes an alternative universe version of 24 protagonist Jack Bauer. Of course, Matt Ruff's version of Jack Bauer is still a fictional character in the eyes of the characters of this novel and rarely gets more than an occasional reference. But then I'm not sure that most cultural conservatives in the U.S. really would want to see an entire novel devoted to that version -- especially since he is a Muslim.

Literary Quote I Like

“Feudalism and socialism,” sneered Emil. “As if those were the only choices. A science-fiction writer has a duty, I think, to be progressive. He should be seeking to invent new systems, not glorifying old ones that have become archaic.”

Yolanda shrugged and looked at her feet. “I would have said that his only obligation is to stimulate thought,” she said. “To inspire the reader to consider existing realities in new ways.”
--Robert Rodi, Closet Case

Book of the Week



Suppose you got the chance to live your life all over again at a certain age with all the memories of your old life still intact. What would you do? What would you change?

Suppose you found out that your new life only lasted until you reached the same age that you were the first time that you died.

Now what would you do?

Now suppose your new life ended and you started over yet again. And you suspected that you were destined to die at the same age as last time -- no matter what you did.

Now what would you do?

Such is the premise of Ken Grimwood's Replay, a 1987 science fiction novel which is too good to be confined to sci-fi buffs. It won the 1988 World Fantasy World and I could tell why. It takes a much used sci-fi premise -- the time loop -- and makes something genuinely memorable out of it. It is tempting to share more plot details but I suspect I have already written enough plot spoilers for this book as it is. Suffice it to say that the ending seemed really obvious in retrospect yet it did not while I was actually reading the book.

Unfortunately, Grimwood died in 2003 while writing a sequel to it. Not that this book needs a sequel but it would have been nice to see what Grimwood came up with.

TV Quote of the Week

I like science fiction. Somebody got a problem with that?
--Chandra Wilson, Grey's Anatomy, “Freedom”

Wait!

Someone published a new novel by champion sci-fi writer Connie Willis and no one told me?

If it wasn't for Shanna Swendson, I would have never heard of this book.


I just hope it's as good as her other books.

Book of the Week



When I started reading Spider Robinson's 1985 novel Night of Power, I was not sure what to expect. Sure, his Callahan's books were great but they were not perfect -- and the last one was definitely less than perfect. Plus this particular book came out more than twenty years ago so it seemed sure to be dated. Moreover, it was written by Spider Robinson, a known aficionado of Robert Heinlein (the man who wrote the controversial novel Farnham's Freehold) -- so I had every reason to expect something on the order of Farnham's Freehold II.

Yet by the time I got to the end, I was surprised. Contrary to what the cover implies, this is actually quite a thoughtful book which takes a premise that seems ripe for jingoism -- an impending race war in New York City -- and then uses the plot to ask some genuinely poignant questions about American race issues. Robinson does not shrink from showing the more violent developments in such an event but he does not go on to pander exclusively to his more xenophobic white readers either.

Most of the story is told through the eyes of Russell Grant, a retired white engineer with a black wife and a white daughter. (The daughter is from a previous marriage.) On their first day in New York City, they are almost the victims of a racially-motivated assault that is only broken up through the intervention of a mysterious figure named Michael. Michael proves to be the leader of a local black power movement -- sort of a community organizer, so to speak. But he is not presented as a stereotypical black supremacist and most of his tactics seem to be more reminiscent of the tactics used by the heroes of The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress than of the ones used by the black tyrant in Farnham's Freehold.

When Russell gets word that Michael will be the target of an assassination attempt, he tries to save his life by warning him, only to become more involved in Michael's plans than he anticipated. Michael turns out to be organizing a revolution against the U.S. government that would lead to the secession of New York State and Pennsylvania and the founding of a free black republic. Russell is not sure he approves of such a revolution but circumstances force him to go along with it.

Things get violent and Russell, his wife and his daughter are all forced to make hard decisions to survive. Towards the end of the book, Russell has a long written conversation with himself in which he tries to reconcile his various experiences -- both positive and negative -- with both blacks and whites and come to one firm conclusion about how he should deal with the new regime.

I found this part to be most intriguing because it would have been very tempting for Robinson to pull his punches and come down on one side or the other. But such a choice would have been simplistic and there has been quite enough simplistic items written in regard to race. Instead Robinson tries to grapple with questions that have yet to receive a definite answer even in the Age of Obama: What is racism? How do you fight it? How can one not be racist if one lives in America and possesses a white skin and what obligation does such a person have to make up for the sins of his ancestors? Can such a person make up for the sins of his ancestors? How is an honorable white person supposed to respond to black bigotry? How much of such bigotry is justified and how much fueled by the same less than noble emotions that fuel white bigotry? Does black separatism have a chance or is it just a pipe dream?

To his credit, Robinson does not pretend to know the answers to these questions. Nor does he end the saga on a predictable note. It could be noted -- at the risk of being a plot spoiler -- that the book ends on a more positive note than the above cover might suggest. But then again, Robinson cannot help having Grant speculate about what would happen to the revolution if Michael ever passed away. And the conclusion he comes to is not a very positive one.

So, in the end, it could be said that the true end of the book is up to the individual reader to decide.

More Science Fiction Short Stories I Wish More People Were Familiar With

1. "Babel II" (1953) -- Damon Knight.

Imagine a world where nobody talks and everyone has to write in order to communicate. No, it is not the Internet. It is the world remade after a visit from an eccentric alien.

2. "Beachcomber" (1972) -- Damon Knight.

The ultimate end of the world story, if not the ultimate argument against putting all your eggs in one basket.

3. "Big, Wide, Wonderful World" (1958) -- Charles E. Fritch.

Reality... What a concept! The ultimate “this is your w -- er -- mind on drugs” story.

4. "Or Else" (1953) -- Henry Kuttner.

A visiting alien comes to Earth and interferes with a couple of feuding Mexicans, asking them to break up their fight over a waterhole while doing nothing to resolve the actual issue they’re fighting over. I must admit that I see absolutely no relationship between this story and current U.S. foreign policy. None whatsoever.

5. "Renaissance Man" (1974) -- T.E.D. Klein.

Klein has fun with the old cliché about a man from the future coming back to the past to “enlighten” us.

6. "Sanity" (1944) -- Fritz Leiber.

A classic sci-fi story that poses the age-old question: what is normal?

7. "S.F." (1975) -- T.E.D. Klein.

In a future world, technology allows people to experience something for the first time over and over again. Then the government gets involved and well -- surprise, surprise, there’s a catch.

8. "The Children of Night" (1964) -- Frederik Pohl.

An ad man does P.R. work for an would-be alien invader, only to face an attack of conscience. A story you won't see on Mad Men any time soon.

9. "The Tunnel Under the World (1955) -- Frederik Pohl.

The ultimate triumph of Madison Avenue in yet another story which makes the wildest episode of Mad Men look tame.

10. "You’re Another" (1955) -- Damon Knight.

The ultimate comment on reality shows -- which is odd because the story was written long before the concept of reality shows was created. I always thought it made an interesting thought on the human condition as well, but what do I know?

Magazine Cover of the Week

Is it wrong of me that I actually miss this magazine? Oh, I suspect it may still be around in some online form but it was never the same after the death of its original publisher, Frederick S. Clarke, so it may as well be gone.

This is the very first issue I bought and I wish very much I had held on to it. It was one of the first magazines to show me that it was possible to talk about my favorite sci-fi and horror movies in an intelligent fashion -- and yes, that was way before the Internet when seeing something like this in print was still a big deal.

TV Quote of the Week

Uh-uh, I said classic sci-fi errors. Now, you’re just attacking good storytelling.
--Fran Kranz, Dollhouse, “Haunted”

Science Fiction Short Stories I Wish More People Were Familiar With

1. “Journeys End” (1957) -- Poul Anderson.

No connection at all to a recent Dr. Who episode with a similar title. And yes, that title is spelled correctly. (It's based on a Shakespeare quote.)

A short story about two telepathic would-be lovers who learn way too much about each other to enjoy a decent relationship, a fate that oddly enough appears to anticipate the pitfalls of today’s cyber-dating. True, we don’t learn as much about our would-be significant others online as the protagonists of this story learn, but we do share the all-too-common temptation to share way too much personal information with our would-be acquaintances in an effort to jump-start an intimacy on which we might otherwise miss out. It doesn’t exactly help that modern society often seems to discourage alternative ways of building a relationship on the grounds that meeting people offline is just so unfashionable.

2. “Snake And Ocean, Ocean and Snake” aka “The Affair” (1984) -- Robert Silverberg.

A telepath carries on a long-distance romance with a fellow telepath.

Another story that appears to have anticipated modern cyber-relationships, although this time the love story has a happier ending. It does, however, anticipate the disappointment many would-be cyber-daters feel when they meet their cyber-partners face-to-face. And it appears to suggest that a purely non-physical relationship with one’s significant other can sometimes be preferable to even the most daring of physical relationships. (Perhaps because it‘s one thing to share one‘s body with another person, but yet another thing to share one’s mind.)

3. “Tomorrow's Children” (1947) -- Poul Anderson.

Mutations become the norm in a post-World War III society. One of the first short stories I ever read that did not argue that the only good mutant was a dead mutant, though one suspects the story was actually meant to reflect contemporary fears about the aftermath of an atomic war, with mutation meant to be just another side effect that would discourage would-be Cold Warriors from promoting the likelihood of World War III.

4. “Multiples” (1983) -- Robert Silverberg.

A woman decides to pose as a sufferer of MPD--in San Francisco, natch. No doubt this story is meant to be Silverberg’s sly comment on bisexuality but it's a moving one, nonetheless. Of course, the woman’s decision to reject her conventional identity at all costs rings a bell even with those of us who are not inclined to reject heterosexuality.

5. “Absalom” (1946) -- Henry Kuttner.

A man experiences a generation gap with his genius-level son. Interestingly enough, it was written before the generation gap of the 1960s.

6. “A Sound of Thunder” (1952) -- Ray Bradbury.

A butterfly plays havoc with history. No doubt this story was inspired by the Kennedy-Nixon presidential race of 1960 although modern readers will be reminded of a more recent presidential race.

7. “Mute” (1962) -- Richard Matheson.

The story of a young telepath who gets adopted by a childless couple after the death of his birth parents and who is later pressured by the local schoolteacher to reject his telepathic abilities in favor of “conventional“ speech. This story was once adapted for a Twilight Zone episode.

Oddly enough, I find it difficult to read this story today without seeing it as a parable of ethnic assimilation. Indeed, the process the story’s schoolteacher uses to force the telepath to become more like the rest of her class seems uncannily like the process used in some stories I’ve read about English immersion. (Though as one who himself went through the English immersion process, I find it odd that it took me years to pick up on this. Sometimes one can be too close to a subject to see certain things.)

8. “Hobson’s Choice” (1952) -- Alfred Bester.

A story that dares to pose the question of whether even the most rugged individualist can be truly happy outside of his own time and culture. Perhaps the story was meant to be Bester’s response to the Miniver Cheevy syndrome, which glorifies the idea of the man born outside his time.

9. “The Last of the Deliverers” (1958) -- Poul Anderson.

The last Communist and the last Republican kill themselves in a society that no longer recognizes the importance of either philosophy. One of the few short stories to anticipate the fall of the Soviet Union but not necessarily the aftermath.

10. “All You Zombies” (1959) -- Robert Heinlein.

A man has identity issues, to put it mildly. The one science fiction story I keep mentally referencing the more time I spend on the Internet because it's so hard not to wonder about the identity of a lot of the people I communicate with. Are they real people like myself or corporate employees pretending to be real people? That question gets harder to answer every year -- and I've already been fooled once.