Well, London has been destroyed again –  why, yes, it does appear to be quite a familiar theme in science fiction – and we are back on track with the “D’s,” deconstruction, and writing in general.

On the deconstruction themes I’ve been curious about,  from Arwen:  “I haven't read any of the books you mention. I know of Dhalgren but never got past about page 2, so I can't answer your question definitively, but I think it is an established literary convention, probably deriving from Modernism. The example that comes to mind is in Joyce's Ulysses, in the "oxen of the sun" chapter, which is also a recapitulation of the development of the English language, so each section is written in a different style. There's an Anglo-Saxon strong verse style, a Shakespearean style, a Dickensian style, and  so on, up to the last section that disintegrates into a lot of squawking, yammering, and shouting advertising sloguns, thus indicating the disintegration of English/civilization in modern times. Re. Dhalgren, all I can offer is that Delany is sometimes called the "James Joyce of science fiction." I don't  associate sci fi with Modernism (in the Modernist age, I think, most sci fi was  anti-Modernist and vice versa, like Wells vs. Woolf). But postmodernism leaked  into sci fi and borrowed from sci fi all over the place, which is natural given
postmodernism's preoccupation with modern technology, cybernetics, etc. So there's a lot of pomo SF out there. Cyberpunk seems pretty pomo as a whole  genre. And pomo borrowed a lot of its conventions, including playing with  linguistic expectations, from Modernism, so that may be the line of descent
you're looking at.”

 So there. Which brings us, finally, to Philip K. Dick.  Wow.

PK’s stories have been turned into a zillion movies: Blade Runner, Imposter, Total Recall, Screamers, Minority Report, Pay Check.  Even as I type this, more movies based on his stories are being filmed.  
However, I am chagrined to admit that although I have always loved these movies, I have never read any books by him before.  I was too young (eighth grade), when I tried Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and was so lost in the first chapter I had to put it down. Fortunately, my reunion with this great writer is The Man in The High Castle.  And it is just amazing that this chill, gut-wrenching story has not been made into a movie...

...because The Man in the High Castle introduces us to Dandelion (Löwenzahn), a Nazi plot to annihilate other races with the finality of blowing the head off of a dandelion.  Isn’t that the most frightening and telling image of all time? With one word?  Wow.

And it doesn’t stop there.  Each page is filled with twists and tendrils of science fiction, telling details of humanity, genuine and flawed characters, and most importantly?  The themes of destiny and fate directly affect the structure of this story: the artwork made by a naïve thief eventually saves his life when a high-ranking official, after pondering the piece, decides he is not going to participate in manslaughter.  The broker of the art piece refuses to buy a gun made by the thief from the high ranking official, thus allowing the official to protect himself and go on to save the artist.  This convoluted turning of stories is a parallel image of the themes of the ever-turning eternal nature of destiny.  Double wow.  And lastly, the ending details are perfectly revealed and wrapped up because this world has been painstakingly thought out.  Triple
wow.

The lessons in this book are myriad. Keep action and story high-end, high-stakes for the reader and the characters.  Make your world complete and oozing details, mood, tone.  Detail,detail, detail.  The very story you tell and the way you tell it can be another way to bring forward your theme.  If your theme is tied to your science fiction and your science fiction is completely explored, you can kill two birds with one stone.

 Two birds, one stone.

You may notice, that I’ve skipped the  “D”s, and have here an “E” author.   This is because Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delaney, a 900 page megalith of a book, did not meet my “I must like you in 20 pages rule” and because it was  such a long book, I hadn’t shopped for other “D” books, yet. The next available one I had on hand was an “E.”

 I had held high hopes for Dhalgren.  After all, books have been written on Delaney’s fiction, and four of his books have won Nebulas, he’s written a book on scifi, and the opening paragraphs of Dhalgren were intriguing.  Sigh. What a disappointment.  I found it impenetrable, pretentious, and with such nonsensical loops of words that I actually found it emotionally unsettling.
  
It brings me back to this deconstruction theme that I have starting to ferret out of some of these books. 
I’m starting to think it is related to using language as an integral part of your theme – and I do believe that some of these authors, in showing a disintegrating world, have their very languages start to fall apart as
well.  In Dhalgren’s case, it started from the very beginning, with a complete lack of involvement of story attached to the words that were being used.

Ick.  Yuck.  It feels mentally ill, and it reminds me too much of my greatest, deepest, and most irrational fear: losing the ability to understand how words go together.  (Which is one of the greatest reasons I
have never experimented with drugs or thought drinking was in any way cool.)

Which, ironically, brings us to What Entropy Means To Me.  What is  more deconstructed than entropy, where all motion stops and things fall apart? Effinger: “Everything that falls down there becomes more and more disassociated, tending to the primal chaotic state.”

(Deep time. Deep time?  Is there a relationship between deep time and chaos?)

George Alec Effinger has written some of my very favorite books in the world, The Budayeen series, which begins with When Gravity Fails.  Entropy is not anything at all like those, but its new style and especially its pedantic tongue-in-cheek tone can be relished. This is the story of a world where things are taken literally, so to speak a “heresy” literally ruins the world.  This is a story where the language is used to tear apart the world at large, pushed through a strainer of philosophy and literature, and was enjoyable to read until the very end, where meaning itself was pulled apart.  
 
I’m not sure why I liked this book and I hated Dhalgren.  Let’s see. For the most part, in this book, there was payoff.  Entropy was an enjoyable read, if not in the very story, then in the confluence of literature and the amazingly fluid tone and delivery.  Trust me, there wasn’t any in Dhalgren.  However, the relationship between these two books, and these themes that I can’t quite grasp intrigues me.  Perhaps I will hold onto that other, horrid book for a while, and read some books on Delaney, and see if I can’t salvage something out of that story.  I can’t promise that I would read it, though.

Finally, even in these first sixteen – oops, seventeen, now –  books I’ve read, I’ve seen the influence of different books on later authors.  Asimov and his buddies certainly set the standards for science fiction,
regardless of how picasso the language eventually becomes. And I am beginning to think that Orson Scott Card is a very talented hack who has lifted from several stories, including Foundation, Engine Summer,
and even A Wrinkle in Time. This 1972 Effinger book, I am sure, was strongly influenced and/or
strongly pays tribute to Zelazny’s 1970 Nine Princes of Amber.  Entropy, after all, is about a royal family, the manipulation of reality, and chaos (Like Zelazny’s Courts of  Chaos), and the entire family wears amber
pendants. 

I must admit, this story shows me a lesson, and I do not understand it.  Is there some sort of specified relationship between language and worlds falling apart?  This deconstruction?  I’ve never heard about it.  Perhaps this is one of the directions I need to go in my reading list.  I wonder if future books will elucidate
this for me, or if there is anyone who can help me.  Hmmm.  My friend Arwen has a brand new doctorate in literature.  Perhaps I should ask her.  
 
Also, tone is a magnificent fluid for a story...

But perhaps the most valuable lesson right now is on how to handle the info-dump in stories.  Info-dump in science fiction is always a tangle – how to present the technical information of the story without turning it into an instruction manual.  In this story, Effinger weaves with breathtaking ease the protaganist’s actions, his family’s history and interactions, and what he anticipates the future will be.  I think the key to this technique is that the author doesn’t feel a burning need to explain every bit right away, (and given the nature of this story, does not explain some things at all.)

Now, I will have to re-read WHEN GRAVITY FAILS again, which depicts an extremely different technology and society, to see how this technique carries through in a more traditionally written book.

I can say that before I read this book (1)  I had not realized that John Christopher was a writer for adults and (2) that  John Christopher played such a part in the formation of my writing  style.  I read this book in less than a day, because it really sucked me in: a virus destroys grass, food becomes an  unreliable variable, and civilization is almost instantly thrown out the  window. His characters are  rational, realistic, and sympathetic: I was all the way through the book before I could even begin to question his vision of the world-gone-barbarous in three days. (I am also surprised how often London is destroyed in science fiction; it
seems to be a favorite target, like New York is for movies.)

Honestly, it had never dawned on me that  he was an adult author.  In junior high, I had read the White Mountains series over and over, and of course,  adored them.  This book was published in 1956; and the copy I purchased to read was published in 1971, just a little before I started reading that spooky series that touched on some of the same themes, such as the nature of civilization, and the loss of innocence. But what a true surprise: I had absolutely no idea that he had been such a big influence on my writing, if not for technique, then for mood and tone. This book had a bittersweet wistfulness, a seasonality, and almost mystical wind in this story that I can see faintly repeated in my own stories.  

I am glad I read this book now, with a  background in biology and agriculture... and having visited London twice this last year... and I look forward to reading his other books.                            

The  lessons this book offers, I may have actually already internalized, so it is difficult to explain them.  I’ll
give it a try.  Writing should truly go beyond describing something creative and giving the reader a visual idea of what is going on: it should evoke something in the reader that they can’t quite name, but identify with instantly.  How in the hell can I quantify that?  All I know is that it has to do with a sleekness in writing that is almost poetry, finding the exact right word that hits the right tone. It comes back to deconstruction,
maybe? I don’t know: that may be one of the goals I will explore during the rest of my reading list.


 

 

Reading this book I was armed with the attitude that Michael Crichton is a hack.  I’d read Jurassic Park and Timeline – both great ideas, and almost embarrassingly crappy execution.  But Andromeda is listed as a classic on many lists, and besides, we already had not one, but two copies in our library... and I had only read the first chapter, several years back.

The book started its own genre: the techno-thriller, and ever since, Crichton has been its favorite son.  Andromeda deserves a good reputation, although Crichton explains without a pang of guilt that his editor at the time had him rewrite and rewrite it til he got it right.  It explains why his later books might be so painfully blocky in the sentence department.

But he is a writer.  Who else goes to medical school, but chooses scifi over medicine?  Only one who has this particular disease known only to Writers.  No one said that all talents are equal, but all writers are fruit of the same tree.  And this is a clever book, working on several conceits.  It treats the story like a report, complete with data sheets, detailed explanation of processes, and a complete bibliography, giving it the stain of authority.  It opens like a Dickens story.  At a certain point, it starts to read like a Vernian travelogue.  He packs each chapter with gobs of creative detail, which you can tell he just loves to write.  And it works.  It is a very good story.

For writers, the basics of scifi run a story, not necessarily the execution.  Also, good, moving chapters with lots of scientific detail and insight, as well as a joy in the details, insight into the human condition.  There is very little fat in this writing.  Given that, a lot can be forgiven... in this story’s case.  I’m still not all that sure about Timeline!

This book wasn’t fair.  It hid from me.  First, I had to call Canada to get a copy under $200.   (I ended up paying about $5).   Then, when I held it and saw the cover and how wonderful it would be, I delayed reading it, hiding it from myself for a while, because I knew I would be sorry when it was over.  I just knew.  Then, even as I read it, it hid from me in riddles and odd sentences, toying with me like a cat.  And in the end, it was melancholy, and thus, completely unfair.

Which is not to say this is not an amazing book and I don’t want to read everything else this author has written.  It is amazing.  I do want to read everything this author has written.  He reminds me of Peter S. Beagle and Charles DeLint and Peter Straub’s Shadowland.  Now, that is quite the mix, isn’t it?

This is a story about a utopia, and dreaming, and the ability to discern the truth and memory and remembering and forgetting.  The “warren people” of this story are Truthful Speakers, in that “They say what they mean, and they mean what they say,” and memories and stories and remembering are everything to them; the Truthful Speakers are contrasted against Dr. Boot’s List people, who forget everything and live from moment to moment.

Utopias, as I noted after reading Childhood’s End, are not the easiest things to write.  But here is a Utopia that works for me.  How is that?  I re-saw M. Night Shamalayn (we’ve decided that his first name is Melvin) The Village.  That movie sort of answers the question.  There is a childlike and loving community of people who do things for one another and protect one another.  “He hand-made me a cane with Ivy’s initials in it,” said one of the actresses, Bryce Howard, in the notes after the movie. “After that, it was easy to fall in love with him.”  She was talking about her character, but in someways, Bryce and Ivy were the same person, although they both acknowledged they had separate lives.  And William Hurt noted on utopias – they have a purpose.

Like the movie, the utopias in this story have a purpose, and therefore work.  And like the movie, this book crossed over into my dreams and reality and memories and forgotten thoughts, so much so, that I only realized in my sleep that the title of Engine Summer was, on one level, a mispronunciation of Injun, or Indian Summer. 

Because of the inherent dreaminess of this story and the rich and imaginative writing, and the anchoring of the theme in every nuance, this book has some similarities to The Drowned World.  The themes of the stories – memory and forgetfulness – are woven into the very bones of this story, and it is wanders poetically, managing to work without any real discernable villains or plot or conflict.  And there is another version of “Deep Time.”

An aside on Deep Time.  On the radio, an archeologist guy was talking about dinosaurs – really, giant ground eagles, he said – and they were alive during the Triassic, which he referred to as “Deep Time.”  Did archeologist guy take it from the book, or did Ballard take it from archeology?

Another circular conundrum.  It seems to be the week.

Which led me to the conclusion of this story as another deconstruction story.  I realized then, I didn’t have a real sense of what deconstruction was, so I looked it up on the internet.  I was wronger and righter than I could have thought I was, in the same instance.  “Deconstructionism” is an arcane philosophy created in the 1960s to evaluate literature, and “deconstruct it,” so I was wrong.  It also holds the belief that every word can have an exact meaning, having dialogues the way the Truthful Speakers do, so I was also right.  Which again rings with the exact nature of this very trippy, very lovely, and very sad book.  Worse, I think the author did this on purpose: he teaches literature and philosophy.

This is what I have learned: I can’t write a story like this.  Realizing that plunged me into a very deep depression, that I have been fighting the last day, like a kayaker on rough waters.  Maybe I will write a story like this in a few decades, but I don’t have it in me, now.  And I think I will have to go back and read my own stories to find my own voice again, because this author’s tone has invaded me, and I can’t shake it, but I’m not part of it either.  Which is what happened to his damn character.  How did he do that?

Weird.  A “Neverending Story” experience.  I hope I have enough sandwiches.

Doing a reading list like this is a series of decisions and choices.  What to read, and what not to read.  I had waffled on Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed; I had read a page of Ben Bova’s Mars and decided it was not for me.  A friend from writing group had given me a book to read, and I chose not to do it: it was not a book that belonged on this reading list.

And, so I found out in the end, neither was this book.  I kept reading Mission of Gravity, all the while wishing that I hadn’t chosen it.  Hal Clement, who studied astronomy at Harvard, and wrote this in 1954, is by his own definition, a hard sci-fi writer.  Yes, this is science fiction in that it goes over in painstaking detail every physical and chemical reason for everything happening, which makes it read like instructions for a toaster.  And what was the goal of the protaganists in the very end?  To get more of these physical directions!

Sigh.  Hard science fiction is not my favorite genre, even when it is done well.  This was not done terribly well.  I kept hoping something would happen, and I kept reading because I hated to dismiss a book without knowing all it had to say.  But in future books, if it isn’t a working relationship between the two of us in twenty pages, I’m going to stop reading it.  You can just call me ill-informed, from now on.  But the only thing I really got out of this book was that I can say “I’ve read Hal Clement.”

This book indicates to me how not to write science fiction, and also how deft Poul Anderson, James Blish, and even in this instance, Arthur C. Clarke are in combining story with science.  Reading this, I kept thinking that this work would have been very useful if given to another writer – say, J.G. Ballard – to use to write a real story.

I’m sorry, Hal, or Mr. Stubbs, as you are known to your students.  You’re in the Hall of Fame and this book is on several “Best of” lists, but it would not be on mine.  For writing, I think this book has examples in the negative – what not to do.