Brave New World

Aldous Huxley

Completed 5/27/2017, Reviewed 5/29/2017

5 stars

I first read “Brave New World” in high school.  I thought it was an amazing book.  The cloning, the drug use to cope with issues, and the free love all just blew my mind.  I read it for an English class with the assignment of critiquing a book of our choice.  It was freshman year, and I couldn’t get the book report format out of my head.  I think I got a B on the assignment, but I always remembered that I didn’t do the homework correctly.  Now, forty years later, I’m critiquing books once or twice a week.  And this time I’ve come around full circle to an old friend.

The book is about a future dystopia.  People are no longer born.  They are cloned and decanted.  There is a caste system that creates five different types of people depending on how much oxygen starvation and alcohol immersion the embryos received.  The caste system satisfies the need to have people of different levels performing all the different tasks of modern society, from the uber-privileged to near non-functional.  All people however are conditioned to love their class, to consume as much as possible, and to use a legal drug called soma to cope with unpleasant things.

The plot follows several people who are Alphas, the highest caste, and their misadventures in the dystopia.  Specifically, Bernard and Lenina take a trip to a Zuni reservation, a “savage” land outside their modern world, and find an upper caste woman who was left there 18 years ago, and her naturally born son.  They bring Linda and John back to society.  Everyone wants to meet John the Savage.  He becomes the toast of London. No one wants to meet his mother because she has become old, ugly, and because being a mother is a vile thing in this society.  Of course, a clash of cultures ensues.

This read through, I still find the book to be quite astonishing.  While we don’t clone people, yet, I believe we do a lot of social conditioning that keeps people in their places.  Sometimes I think we might as well have a caste system.  I’m not cricitizing people for what they do, but rather the society at large that treats people of different skill sets poorly, and even more apropos to today’s headlines, people of different ethnic backgrounds.

In other issues brought about in the book, one can liken the use of soma to the burgeoning movement to legalize marijuana.  From a different and perhaps a more profound perspective, maybe today’s soma is anti-depressants, government-approved ways to cope with the miseries of life today. 

The one thing I think is different is the free love issue.  While there is promiscuity and always has been, I believe that unlike the book’s government approved attitude toward sex, our society has a veneer of puritan or Victorian mores.  That’s perhaps even worse because it creates a society of shame rather than a healthy attitude toward sex.  But of course, talking about sex is a mine field waiting to happen.  What I do believe about the book is that the laissez-faire attitude reduces the significance sex, which is already reduced by the use of cloning for reproduction.

I would like to have read Brave New World Revisited, Huxley’s essay from the 50’s where he compares his predictions in the novel to where modern society had come.  That’s because, as you can see its effect on me, the book draws the reader into comparing it to their time.  I easily forgive the flaws of the book because I’m spending so much time comparing it to what I perceive is society now.

As a book, it holds up very well.  It is still very readable, for the most part.  I have to say I had a hard time with some of the exposition.  Most significantly, the first part of the book is a little dull.  It explains the use of cloning by sending a class of new doctors through the cloning center.  I found it hard to follow at times, not because of the science, but because of the way it was written.  I also found the big exposition at the end a little hard to read.  There it was the philosophy that was tough to get through.  Aside from these two areas, though, the book is an easy read. 

The character development is decent.  I dare say it was easy because so many of the characters are quite shallow and naïve.  Even Bernard, who is ridiculed for looking at life more deeply than everyone else, is still comparatively shallow.  Only John the Savage looks at life deeply, keeping him at odds with everyone else.  And John is naïve as well, but in a different way than that of the society around him.  That is what causes the conflict.

One thing that I find rather amusing at this point is the naming of the characters.  A lot of people are named after communists.  I think it is funny because I can see a society like this be the outcome of capitalism gone mad, the ultimate consumerism, a complete throw-away society, rather than communism.  In fact, it sort of reminds me of the Science Fiction film, “They Live”, where everything has subliminal messages in it to consume. 

I had a tough time deciding how many stars to give this book.  I settled on five because I still believe it is a classic of science fiction.  It forces the reader to reflect on what a utopia is and is not, and what direction society is moving.  As I mentioned earlier, the book makes me overlook its flaws to focus on its relevance.  I do think the book has a few flaws, but it is one of the best dystopian novels of our time.  

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Becky Chambers

Completed 5/21/2017, reviewed 5/21/2017

4 stars

I don’t think I can say I hate space opera anymore.  I’ve enjoyed too many in recent months.  Here’s another.  What sets this apart though is that it is more of a character study than a plot driven story.  The book tells the tale of the crew of the Wayfarer on its year long journey to a new planet in the galactic alliance, where it will punch a new wormhole into the fabric of space.  The episodic chapters are little vignettes, almost like short stories, which give us a little more insight into the characters of the crew.

I’ve read quite a few reviews of the book, many of which compare it to Firefly or Farscape.  What I think promotes this view is that the book is written, as I mentioned earlier, episodically which makes it feel like your reading the script for a season of a TV series.  There may be more similarities to these programs, but I don’t know those enough to compare.  What I do know is that I enjoyed the book and I enjoyed the characters. 

What surprised me the most about the book is that most of the characters are nice.  They have become like a family in their closeness.  There’s one character who’s very ornery, but even he comes around through the episode where he’s featured.  It’s quite a change from your standard space opera where everyone is dark, where even the good guys have a dark edge to them.  I’m not saying they are Mary Sues’, but it made me feel good to get involved with the characters.  And, okay, one of the characters is rather perky.  Along the same vein, there is a surprisingly little amount of blood and guts. 

Perhaps most interestingly, there are some inter-species relationships.  I think they are handled very well.  The crew is a diverse collection of human and non-human members.  The aliens are particularly well drawn.  Sissix was my favorite of all the aliens.  Sissix has scales and claws and comes from a culture with complex family groupings.  This world building was very interesting and Sissix just stuck out for me as the best of the bunch. 

I give this book four stars out of five.  I read this book because its sequel was nominated for a Hugo, and I’m on a kick to read the Hugo nominees this year.  So of course I have to read the first book before the sequel, right?  I obviously haven’t read the second book yet, but I’m surprised this book was not nominated for a Hugo, though who’s to say what might have been if the rabid puppies hadn’t hijacked some of the nominations.  I think this book should have been a contender.   It’s a fun read with great charactes, aliens, and world-building.  

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

Philip K Dick

Completed 5/13/2017 Reviewed 5/15/2017

4 stars

Another wild book from Philip K Dick.  The world has become hot and crowded.  The UN drafts people to relocate to other planets and moons to alleviate the population and environmental crisis.  But life on the alien worlds is tough and degrading.  To avoid despair, people use a drug called Can-D which creates the illusion that you are on earth via a tableau of Barbie- and Ken-type dolls and accessories.  Palmer Eldritch returns from a ten year trip to Proxima Centauri with a potential rival product called Chew-Z which doesn’t require the tableaus.  The makers of Can-D are threatened by Chew-Z, but find a much more sinister relationship between the new drug, its users, and Eldritch. 

The book is short, only about 230 pages, but it is chock full of weirdness.  The above synopsis just gives you a taste of the plot.  There is so much going on, like the main character Barney Mayerson who is a procog, that is, he can see the future, who works for the Can-D company predicting what products will become good sellers for the Perky Pat tableaus.  He’s having an affair with another precog, but regrets leaving his wife.  His character is really well drawn.  While some of the other characters are a little bit like cardboard cutouts, like Barney’s boss Leo, a cigar-chompin’ stereotypical boss from the ‘50s, they are still interesting and infused with lots of detail. 

Once again, Dick tackles religion and God as he did in the last book I read, Deus Irae.  Here, it comes in various forms, including the religion that pops up around the Perky Pat and Can-D experiences.  But the big theological question surrounds the nature of Palmer Eldritch.  Is he really still Palmer Eldritch, or had he been taken over by an alien on his space trip?  And for that matter, is he now a god, or some type of supreme being?   And does Chew-Z create a spiritual experience or is it just a hallucination? 

The questions are tough and not so easily answered.  As the book progresses, the blur between reality and hallucination becomes more and more confusing.  The beginning is fairly straight-forward: you know when you are in reality and when you are in a hallucination.  Or maybe you don’t know.  I have to say that Dick is an expert at playing games with reality.  It made for a great read, though I must admit I felt a little lost towards the end.  However, I really enjoyed it the ride it took me on.  I give it four stars out of five.

Deus Irae

Philip K Dick and Roger Zelazny

Completed 5/7/2017, reviewed 5/7/2017

4 stars

I picked this book to read for a theology in SF/F reading challenge, and boy did I pick a doozey.  At 180 pages, this has to be one of the most complicated little books I’ve read in a long time.  I really enjoyed it, but it is heavy on the theology and has a crazy plot.  My understanding is that Dick started the book, but put it down and offered it to another writer because he didn’t know enough about Christianity to finish it.  Zelazny saw it at the other writer’s house and offered to finish it for Dick.  So part of the fun of this book is trying to guess who wrote what parts.  This only being the second book by Dick I’ve read, but the fifth by Zelazny, I still had fun playing guess the author.  But the real fun comes in the crazy plot these guys dreamed up.

After WWIII, a new religion has formed.  Its god is the God of Wrath (hence the title) and in human form is Carleton Lufteufel who made the decision to drop the bomb that destroys most of mankind.  By the way, Lufteufel means “air devil” in German.  Tibor McMasters is an “inc”, an incomplete person because he was born without arms or legs and has bionic limbs instead.  He’s also possibly the world’s greatest living painter.  He is asked by the Servants of Wrath (SOWs) to paint Lufteufel’s image in a murch, a mural in their church.  Not content to use a pre-war photo which makes Lufteufel look human, he goes on a pilgrimage to find the real Lufteufel to capture his godliness.  Tibor is followed by Pete Sands, a devout Christian who seeks God through the use of psychedelics, and who wants to sabotage the pilgrimage.  On the way, they meet the mutants created by the bomb:  talking lizard people, sentient bugs, worms, birds, and some dying AIs. 

See, the plot is pretty wild.  However, it’s fairly eash to follow.  Part of it is because the characters are developed pretty well, especially for just 180 pages.  So you get the characters quickly and jump right into the craziness that is their missions.  I really like Tibor and Pete even though they are both rather flawed.  Tibor gets sick when it’s time paint.  And he really wants out of painting Lufteufel.  He even considers converting to Christianity just to get out of it.  Pete has taken his parish priest’s advice a little too much to heart and is willing to do anything to stop Tibor. 

There’s a lot of humor as well, particularly with the mutants and AIs.  I particularly liked Pete’s encounter with the autofac, the underground automatic factory, that tortures Pete by “repairing” his bicycle.  And the book is kind of a sausage fest.  There are only three women, but two of them add humor as well.  One is the long-suffering wife of a SOW priest, the other is the long-suffering pipe smoking girlfriend of Pete.  As I write this, I realize that despite his nefarious mission, Pete does seem to be at the center of much of the comedy. 

The theological part comes into play in several ways that are pretty integral to plot.  To say too much gives away a lot.  However, I will say that the theme is that over time, we lose the authentic records of faith and come to rely on that which was artificially created.  It’s sort of like the game of telephone.  Go through enough people and the original message is replaced by the wrong message.  That which is authentic is lost forever.

I give this book four out of five stars.  It’s a lot of fun, particularly if you know a lot about Christianity.  It also helps if you know a little German (which I don’t).  Dick uses some German phrases and poetry, not all of which is translated.  And it might require some forays into Wikipedia like when he talks about some heresies.  Okay, some caveats to getting it, but I got it and enjoyed it.  I think the average person will too.

The Obelisk Gate

N.K. Jemisin

Completed 5/6/2017, reviewed 5/7/2017

4 stars

There’s something about Jemisin’s writing that is absolutely amazing.  Even though this book suffers from second book in a series sag, the writing is still brilliant and some subplots that seem, well, plotless, are still wonderful to read.  The book is a continuation of The Fifth Season, with the adventures of Essun, an orogene.  As I noted last time, think of her as an earth bender, for those who may be familiar with the “Avatar: The Last Airbender” animated series.  The book also follows what happened to her daughter, Nassun, who from the first book, we know was kidnapped by Essun’s husband after he killed their son.  Essun is still searching for Nassun.  By the way, since this is a second book, there are some spoilers from the first book, but I’ll try to keep it minimal.

The most masterful part of this book is once again the person of the narrator in each section of the book.  There are short first person segments.  The story of Essun is told in second person.  The story of Nassun is told in third person.  While still a difficult way to read a story, the second person parts are very natural.  While I think it is only the third book I’ve read employing second person (though I’ve read a couple of short stories employing it as well) I have to say it is the most amazing writing I’ve ever experienced.  Only occasionally did it bog me down, sometimes losing my stamina for maintaining the story.

Like the first book, there is a mystery to who the narrator is.  This time the narrator is a different person from the first book.  I think it’s revealed about halfway through the book, but I believe I missed it and didn’t figure it out until the end.  But figuring out who the narrator is helps explain a plot hole, that being the use of the word “magic”.  In Essun’s story, we find out that “magic” is a secret word from the past that is no longer used today.  Yet it appears in Nassun’s narrative.   But once you find out who the narrator is, you get that Nassun can think about things in terms of magic because the narrator is a little omniscient. 

Essun and Nassun are both wonderful characters.  Surprisingly, they are both anti-heroes.  As much as you want to like them, you can’t completely because they do harm with their powers.  Nassun really stole the show for me in this book.  Essun’s story line of settling in an underground community was a little slow.  Nassun’s story line of going on the lam with her murderous father is much more riveting.  It was very interesting following her process of loving her dad to realizing that he is anathema, trying to get her cured of her orogene powers rather than supporting her growing into them.  Of course, the father is only reacting as badly as most of the population does toward the orogenes.  It is why he killed his son.  But she is daddy’s little girl and he’s going to get her fixed. 

As with the first book, this one is very diverse, with all sorts of persons of color and different orientations.  There’s even a different race, the stone eaters, who we don’t even know for sure that they’re human, but are perhaps more human than either “stills” or the “roggas”.  The stone eaters come more into play in this book as well with Hoa playing a larger role.

Even though I note that there is a sag to this book, namely in the slowness of the buildup of Essun’s plotline, I give this book four out of five stars.  It is the second of perhaps the most imaginative series I’ve ever read.  

Tinker

Wen Spencer

Completed 4/27/2017 Reviewed 5/4/2017

2 stars

I’m just dying to say “Tinker” is a stinker, but it’s a tad more complicated.  I went in thinking the book was going to be fluff, but it turned out to be partly fluff, partly really heavy.  Unfortunately, the heavy parts were taken lightly which I found very disturbing.  There’s going to be some spoilers in this review, so don’t continue if you think you’re going to read it. 

Tinker is a young woman, just turned eighteen, who lives in Pittsburgh.  However, it’s a Pittsburgh that mainly exists in another dimension.  You see, the Chinese built an interdimensional gateway and they don’t know exactly how it works.  A side effect is that the city of Pittsburgh spends most of each month in a dimension of elves and magic and monsters.  Once a month, for a day, it exists back in our dimension in its normal location.  Tinker has lived in this travelling Pittsburgh her whole life, running a junkyard, building contraptions, and just being brilliant and pretty.  Of course, she doesn’t know just how brilliant or pretty she is, because, well, she’s a Mary Sue.

For those that don’t know, a Mary Sue is a character that is usually young, pretty, and smart, sort of an idealized and perfect fictioinal character.  Flaws are usually minimal.  Think Wesley Crusher from Star Trek Next Gen.  When this is the main character, the book can become a bore because the character lacks in realism. 

One day, while being chased by wargs, an elf comes to her rescue, but is badly injured.  In the process of getting him healed he falls in love with her, though.  She’s oblivious to this though does find him exceedingly attractive.  In fact, she’s naïve about most things.  Thus begins a journey which forces her to confront who she is and where she’s going. 

The plots are the subplots, and vice versa.  The story is really about who does Tinker love.  The action and everything else are really the subplots to Tinker’s love life.  It’s sort of the opposite of how most science fiction and fantasy books work.  But even more problematic is the nature of her love life.  It’s full of non-consensual acts.  Okay, two.  I think it’s okay to have story lines like these in a book, but they need to be dealt with in realistic ways.  In this book, they don’t have the drama that comes after the act.  It all kind of “goes away”.  In fact, one of the perpetrators actually disappears from the story.  I have to assume he comes back in a later volume.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you’re going to have mature devices, there has to be a level of maturity to the story.  “Tinker” doesn’t have that. 

There’s another scene which is pretty horrific that involves one of the bad characters.  Again, it seems that it just isn’t done well.  I think a good example of how it could be handled well, while still being deplorable, is in Richard K. Morgan’s The Cold Commands, a dark fantasy where the lines between good and evil are blurry, and it solidifies the main character as an anti-hero. 

As far as everything else in the book, there are some interesting characters.  I particularly liked Oil-Can, her cousin.  Yeah, the names get to you after a while.  The world building is pretty good, mixing science and magic.  But again, I’ve seen better mixes of science and magic, for instance, N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season. 

Maybe I’m just over sensitive, or maybe it’s because I was expecting something different, but I didn’t like this book.  The last quarter became a chore to read.  I’d like to see how other people respond to this book.  This was a book club selection, so I’m interested in seeing where the lines are drawn between the likes and the dislikes.  Two out of five stars.