The cover of this book was intriguing and wistful, and I could just make out the name of the artist: Gerry Daly.  He also did the cover for A.E. Van Vogt’s The Space Beagle.  (It then dawns on me that I was never curious as to what “A.E.” stood for, because I wasn’t too thrilled with the book.  Alfred Elton, in case anyone was wondering.)

Juniper Time is about linguistics, drought, Native Americans, aliens, and a collapsing society with barrio “New Towns” that are as chilling as anything I’ve read.  There is a nod to East Lansing, because of Kate Wilhelm’s involvement with Clarion.  I really liked the pacing in this book, except for the last two chapters, which were very rushed.  I thought at times this book took itself a little too seriously, even with the dystopic themes at hand.  Everyone’s life has a light moment here and there.

I think pacing is going to be a real challenge in my next book, trusting my story and characters and not rushing them too much.  This book showed both great and poor pacing, and speed definitely detracts.  But if you’re too slow, the book bogs down.  It’s a quandary.

                                                         Kate Wilhem is a such a powerful writer.  Visit her here.

An unwritten rule of dystopia: Everyone Dies.  The protagonists do not meet with merry endings in these stories, not a one.  This particular one is environmental dystopia, fresh on the heels of Silent Spring.  It made me realize something I probably should have already, that dystopias are “problems writ large,” not necessarily a prediction of what the future may bring.  Brunner’s polluted planet that collapses into war and plague seems a bit dire forty years after this book was written, but his concerns are realistic.  E. Coli outbreaks, terrorism attacks with airplanes, and an obtuse president (Prexy) who would consider a Nobel Peace Prize a direct affront to the United States? 

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my. 

I’ve wanted to read this book since I heard about it.  I love the title, from Milton’s Lycidas.  When this was written in 1972, he’d already written 70 books, including the Hugo winning Sands of Zanzibar.  Jealousy ensues.

So, in jealous pique, I will bring up one of the worst “puh-lease” reactions I’ve ever had to a book in my life.  Black man is foully killed in misunderstanding after being found grasping at white woman with torn clothing and bleeding (from menstruation).  What’s worse than a reveal?  A completely artificial setup only to achieve an effect.   

According to Wikipedia, Yevgeny Zamyatin was synesthate, which may have made him, at his core, at the genetic level, a poet. 

“Algebraic rain,” and “You too must have drops of sunny forest blood” hint at his ability.  More tellingly: “I had never known this before, but now I know it, and you know it: laughter can be of different colors.  It is only an echo of a distant explosion within you.  It may be festive – red, blue, and golden fireworks; or– torn fragments of a human body flying up.”  His ability also leads to more abstract emotional cross-overs:“It was like holding up your hands and shouting to a bullet: you still hear your ridiculous “Don’t,” and the bullet has already gone through you, you are already writhing on the floor.”

But Zamyatin took this innate ability that allowed him to see a cold pale blue along with the letter “L” out of simple poetic imagery and used it to examine and demonstrate the less visible properties of the human soul.  It’s amazing. 

“It has never occurred to me before, but this is truly how it is: all of us on earth walk constantly over a seething, scarlet sea of flame, hidden below, in the belly of the earth.  We never think of it.  But what if the thin crust under our feet should turn into glass and we should suddenly see... I became glass.  I saw within – myself.”

This eerie poetry is not the reason that We is on most science fiction reading lists: written around 1921, it is also the first dystopia of note, making an obvious trail which was eventually followed by Brave New World, 1984, Ayn Rand’s Anthem, and apparently, Vonnegut’s Piano Player.

It’s not a perfect book, though I am finding there may be no such thing.  I carried this book around in my purse for a few weeks, reading chapters here and there, but I had to make a conscious effort to sit down and finish it.  The plot plods, in the way books of this vintage can.

If anyone wants to say, “I know science fiction,” I think they have to read this book.  It also has a critical lesson for writers: analyze and more importantly, describe, the human being’s ticking mind and beating heart beneath, and yes, their little hidden souls.  It’s the real story.

Story.

I chose this story instead of better known classics like The War of the Worlds or The Time Machine, because this is the book that is quoted often by Frank Herbert in Dune.  I’d never known where “The Sleeper Wakes”  had come from, but I could feel the resonance, the power,  in it.  It came from this book.

It is not a good book.  Frank Herbert must have taken on its mantle because he could feel the strength of the ideas within yearning to be better articulated – a person becomes a pawn for two governments vying for dominance in a crowded, industrial London.  There is no doubt that this book laid the ground for the dystopias that followed it, and there were chill ideas that pleased me, such as “euthanasy.”  But this is very much a Victorian story, with lots of fainting and gasping; I had to quickly skim the last third of it just to get through.

Okay, so it IS possible for a character to be TOO emotional.

I’ve wanted to read this book ever since I heard of it ten years ago.  This was a lost manuscript that sat in a safe for 130 years, and it was Jules Verne’s vision of a dystopic, industrial, artless, and heartless 1960.  It’s staged in Paris, my favorite city.  It seemed the perfect story for this list.  The story did not disappoint.

Aside from Jules Verne’s freakishly imaginative insight into the sociology and technology of the future, there was a gift chapter in the middle discussing great French authors, including Stendhal, Hugo, and many others, comparing their works to great generals in the “war against barbarism.”  Did Verne guess he would join this pantheon, and that he himself would “astound the age?”  It gives me shivers.  And who would not delight in Leviathian IV, a gigantic ocean liner with trees and horses on its top deck?

I could not help myself.  I had to highlight passages.  “I love youth, provided it is young!”  “Well, my friend, an army that fights for a financial motive will no longer be composed of soldiers, but of looters and thieves!”  “Michel soon identified him as belonging to the genus Number, order Cashier.”  “A clock that measures nothing but suffering.”  There were many, many others.

All of Verne’s analogies, metaphors, and similes are creative and wonderfully playful.  His characters delight in them, as do we, and the camaraderie between his like-minded souls creates in the reader a deep affection for their concerns.

As I started this book, I thought it should really have a warning on it: The following is intended for mature audiences due to sex, language, and violence.  It hits harder and deeper than any movie or TV show could.   From the first pages, this book was an assault, forcing you to band together with the protagonist as she is thrown into a mental asylum, and dipping you into the dystopia of our world today.

The points were made with a stiletto knife.  Power is violence, and that violence is applied to the poor, women, minorities, homosexuals, criminals, and the psychologically fragile.  It was interesting that Consuelo mentally time-travels to a utopia whose many social customs break taboos created by other dystopic stories.  Babies born in bottles and the sexuality of young children were horrific in Brave New World, and creches in Logan’s Run were amoral, but here freed women from reproductive slavery and removed shame from children’s exploration of their bodies.  Men being forced to nurse their children in 334 were here allowed the pleasure and gentleness of breast feeding.  The community values destroying individual lives in 1984 create a safe, loving environment here.  Do I find the perfect world Piercy created to be viable or believable?  No: I think our monkey-brains have prepackaged much of our social structure.  But I find it interesting the implication that our current social conventions and taboos can serve the purpose of exerting control over people.  Piercy’s utopia removes feminine and masculine pronouns and references; everyone is a person.  And how can anyone not yearn just a little bit for an ecologically sensitive world where “Person must not do what person cannot do – person must do what person has to do?”  It is lovely, especially when backed up against the ugly truths of our own world.

As harsh and brutal as this story gets, it was also a page turner.  I could not help but admire how the author stacked her effects.  Creating effect is more than foreshadowing; it’s laying all the dominos in the pattern so that when they are knocked down, a pattern is made.  One great example: Consuelo reminisces often how her beloved Claud was in a medical experiment in prison that resulted in his death; this lets us fear it, and fear she also will be subjected to the cruel vagaries of “modern medicine.”   She is in such great danger in the asylum, this is always on our minds even when she visits the safe world of the future.  It makes the story an emotional juggernaut, unstoppable.  Which is why I was furious when I got to the end.  I know downer endings were popular in the 1970s, but this was too much for me.  The way the book was set up, I had no choice but to care greatly for the character, and I desperately wanted her to get free in the end.  It’s never promised that she will, but her failure is another effect, and takes unfair advantage of the reader.   I don’t care if it makes the point of the book.  I found it abusive to me.

Effect is powerful, so powerful in fact, that you must be careful not to unfairly manipulate or hurt your reader.  Remember, they’re in the story, too.     

I’d read this book for tenth grade English, a very long time ago, and all I had remembered of it was Julia and the rats.  There was quite a bit more.  “It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their children,” and “I hate purity, I hate goodness.  I don’t want any virtue to exist anywhere.  I want everyone to be corrupt to their bones,” and “Sanity is not statistical.” And a million other quotes and ideas... 

 

I can see why this is on the top ten of most science fiction lists.  Still, it’s not the best book to read when you are depressed.  It is amazingly well-written: George Orwell (born Eric Blair) understood that creating a world comes down to creating sensations in the readers.  In effect, effect.   This book describes everything, every sensation, through every sense.  It traps you in the biggest, baddest dystopia that’s ever been written, with no reprieve.  For me it was a little much.

 

Orwell wrote this as a story, not specifically as science fiction, and had no aversion to info-dump or out-and-out soap boxing.  The info-dump I didn’t mind so much as the ten pages of ranting against the system.  That got a little long.  The ending got a little lecture-y, too.  But I very much admire such unflinching technique, especially the use of reoccurring imagery – Winston’s ulcerous ankle and a glass paperweight with a pink coral center – to make his themes of betrayal, loss of identity, and pain resonate. 

 

Oh, and he knew what he was doing.  His pointed essay, “On Writing” addressed the sensational power of language, and this book shows he understands that in spades:  “A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus.  What am I trying to say?  What words will express it?  What image or idiom will make it clearer?  Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

I am so glad I found this book in the Acres of Books bookstore in Long Beach.  I had not been expecting to find this fairly unknown, tattered little book, a 1972 printing of the 1955 story.  When I found it, I took advantage of the good fortune: I moved someone else off the list to make room for it.  The first ten pages were so dense and droning, I thought to myself: “Oh, what a shame.  This isn’t the good writing from the 1950s.”  But I was mistaken.  

This is a wonderful story.  If anyone ever asked me, “What is this science fiction thing about?  What kinds of things are covered in science fiction?,” I would surely recommend this book.  Einsteinian physics, the nature of reality, post-apocalypse, time travel, dystopia, utopia, alternate universes, and even steam punk all take a bow in this amazing tale of one Hodgins “Hodge” Backmaker, who wants to be a historian in a world where the South won the Civil War.  The pedantic writing of the opening quickly evaporates, leaving a dry wit and a thoughtful voice that examines ideas freely and in depth.  Although I was a little disappointed that I guessed the ending eighty percent in, it was still a very rewarding read.  

My favorite part of this world was the scholarly Haggershaven, where creative people of all stripe and background sequester themselves to further their own studies.  All of them contributed to the survival of this little enclave by doing chores, working crops, or doing odd jobs in town.  For me, it was utopic.  

Moore’s prose is free and is also given rein to say what it needs to say.  He doesn’t parse words.  A good writing lesson – Writer, give yourself room to say what you need to say.

On purpose, I got a copy of this book which has color pictures from the movie.  The movie was it in science fiction before Star Wars came along: chill dystopia and guilty pleasure both.  The only thing I remember about the book when I read it in eighth grade was that it was different from the movie.  But this book is a huge surprise.  It is a salacious, quick read and chill, poetic literature.  It belongs on my list.  

The dedication is a tipoff.  In most books, a dedication is in an enigmatic one-liner such as “To Billy.”  In this book, it is a full two pages that includes books, movies, cartoons, tv shows, comic books, famous characters, authors, and ends with “WITH LOVE, to the Green Hills of Earth.”  

It does not have a dedication to J.G. Ballard, but my supposition is that this entire book is a dedication to the works of Ballard.  My evidence?  First, Logan 3 and Jessica 6 are seeking a man named Ballard.  Second, they pass through all of Ballard’s worlds: the ice world, the desert world, the jungle world.  Third, once they’ve found Ballard, they go on to “Cape Steinbeck!”

Fourth, the repetitive word use of “wild” and “wind” to embody the themes of youth in a decaying culture are elemental like Ballard’s “Elemental Novels,” and are also reflected in poetically wild and windy language.  The working title of this book was A Wild Run for Morgan 3.  (My favorite word in this book: cavernicolous). Fifth, Nolan was a well-read man who had written books on other authors such as Hemingway and Hammet, who would surely know of Ballard.  (Johnson, a screen-writer who wrote Oceans 11, I credit for the snappy dialogue, telegraphed actions scene, and the worst ending ever written for any book, ever.)  

The science fiction elements in Logan’s Run are fiercely imaginative and creepily presented, I loved the background story for Logan, and the book additionally took frequent polite bows to other books: Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Frank Herbert’s Dune, Ursula LeGuin’s icy prison in The Left Hand of Darkness,  Huxley’s Brave New World, and perhaps others I haven’t even read yet.  I have no doubt that this was book was an influence on George Lucas, whose chase-scenes in his later movies have undeniable parallels.  On influence, I wonder.  When is it outright theft and when is it respectful?  These may be unrealistic lines to draw, and based on whether the work ultimately succeeds on its own.  For me, this one does.  

What makes this book wonderful is how imaginatively the themes and concerns are turned into settings, which is very Ballard-esque.  I also appreciate how words are cobbled together to describe images – they fit poetically, but not necessarily logically.  “They came out beneath a clean, cold waterfall that speared white music into the deep gorge.”  I like it a lot.

First, I bought the wrong book: Brave New World Revisited.  Then, I got the right one from Amazon.  Then, Chris picked up another one up at Book Man over Thanksgiving.  We are now well stocked in this 1931 classic.  I had seen the seventies movie, and part of the SciFi Channel (ick) movie.  I had not read the book before.

I was swept off of my feet by the magnificent first chapters of this book.  Although the characters rarely rise above their stations as essay-ic mouthpieces and none of them were truly sympathetic for me, I greatly appreciated the Shakespeare-quoting Savage and multitudinous points that struck home like Robin Hood on methamphetamine.  It’s no accident this book takes The Tempest as its jumping-off point.  This story chronicles a delirious insanity that doesn’t quite make sense and yet is obviously a pillar of a temple dedicated to our deepest secrets and needs.

Some of the reviewers on Amazon debated Huxley’s depiction of the future, but it seemed clear to me that he was mocking his own (and our) culture.  I can almost hear him: “Well, if we must be split into social classes, we should at least be humanitarian about it.  Make people be better adapted to their servitude.  In fact, make them enjoy it.”  For me, this isn’t a story about totalitarianism and lack of freedom – it’s a story about clinging to systems that work for us despite their amorality.  Then, I realized after reading the part on “The Absence of God as Proof of God” that the unquestioning following of a social system to its natural, though ludicrous conclusion, by absence of not discussing it, proves its existence as a theme.

Reading Brave New World, I was taken aback by my own reaction – given how unfair and frightening the world is now, perhaps this alternate variation would not be such a bad thing.  Is it really any worse than what we have now?  No!  And I think that’s the point of this story.

This book comes at an odd time for me in my own story-writing process.  I am working on The Red Road, and one of its themes is that civilization exists because humans are afraid of being lonely.  What did Brave New World give The Red Road?  This: society has many ills, but perhaps we prefer those ills since they also stand to protect us against our own innate fears.

Once again, an older work of literature informs and directs a story.  I’m not sure I have the fortitude to choose a work as nervy as The Tempest, but I could follow the lead of “Making a point by not making a point.”  (However, I wouldn’t choose it as a first or second theme, because it would be too obtuse and confusing for the reader.)  

 Oh.  There can also be more than one theme to a book.  That’s an important (and easier) lesson.