Category Archives: Science Fiction

Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky

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Read: 19 January, 2013

My first introduction to this story was watching the 1979 film Stalker, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. It’s a weird movie and distinctively Russian in its “let’s just give up and go home” mentality. I found it boring and silly the first time I watched it, but it stuck with me. Finally, I decided to watch it again and I fell in love. It’s an interesting movie and well worth watching if you come across it. Just be forewarned: Nothing happens. I mean that. Nothing happens. If you expect stuff to happen in movies, you’ll be disappointed.

Next, I played some of the games. Same world, same concepts, but totally different. For one thing, all those dangers that the stalker warns his guests about in the movie but that never amount to anything actually happen in the game. Between the three of them, there’s quite a bit of fun to be had. Gameplay is good (especially after the long-awaited patch for Clear Skies), storyline is interesting, environment design is amazing. Also worth it if you’re into FPS games.

All this is just to say that I’ve been familiar with the the Stalker setting for many years, so I was excited to see where it all began.

The book follows Redrick Schuhart, a stalker, over the course of about a decade. A stalker is an individual who goes into the Zone illegally to collect alien artefacts for black market sale. Through Schuhart, we get to see the threat and terror of the Zone, and of the people who seek to profit from it at all costs.

It’s a very short novel, but a slow read. The translation wasn’t particularly good, keeping idioms and word orders from the original Russian, but the story was very interesting and compelling. And, of course, the novel is sprinkled through with philosophical discussions, often about how absurd people are and how futile are their aspirations – it is a Russian novel, after all!

If you are into science fiction or Russian literature, I highly recommend giving this book a read!

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The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

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Read: 19 January, 2013

The use of describing a fictional land to make a political or philosophical point is nothing knew – after all, that’s how Atlantis got its début. Later, during the Age of Exploration, the explorer’s tale was combined with this fictional land device, giving us books like More’s Utopia and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, in which a seafaring explorer happens upon magical lands – each of which teaches us a lesson about ourselves and our society (and what these could be or become).

In The Time Machine, Wells modernises the premise, giving his protagonist a time machine instead of a ship, and sending him far into the future instead of into uncharted lands.

There’s no question that Wells was consciously creating a story of the Utopia or Gulliver’s Travels type, but he does it with a wink and a nudge. Over and over again, the Time Traveller makes assumptions about the futurescape he explores and what led to it, only to be shown wrong later and have to revise his theories. As usual, he learns that things tend to be a bit more complicated than they may appear at first (or second!) glance. Even at the end, when the Time Traveller is gone and we are left only with his theories and the narrator, the narrator calls the final theories into question yet again, informing us that the Time Traveller had always be prone to arriving at those types of conclusions, reminding us that the Time Traveller – the lens through which we see the future – is flawed and untrustworthy.

I found it to be an interesting read. Certainly, the injection of evolution into the poli-sci-ism of More and Swift gave the genre a neat new dimension. But I found it to be a bit short. I think I would have enjoyed the novel more if the 802,701 C.E. storyline had been a little more condensed, and the Time Traveller had gone to a few more points in history. Then again, I know what Wells was trying to do, and the book is certainly interesting and entertaining enough as is.

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Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein

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Read: 5 December, 2012

My household loves the terrible movie inspired by the book, so I couldn’t resist reading the book when I found it at a book sale, despite being warned that it bears very little resemblance to the movie.

And that’s true. For one thing, the movie had a plot, which the novel only flirts with occasionally. In the novel, Johnny Rico joins the Mobile Infantry against his parents’ wishes, muddles his way through bootcamp, then begins his career in the military. Characters pass in and out of his life and we’re taken on a whirlwind tour through his story.

The whole novel seems to be a vehicle for the History and Moral Philosophy courses that Johnny takes at various points through his life, and where his teachers can rant about various theories. These were, mostly, at least interesting, but some were just weird – such as the rant about how much better our society would be if we reinstated corporal punishment (both as a legal measure, and for parents to use on their children from as young as babies), as if this were a thought experiment and not something that had actually been the case through most of human history.

The subject of the military was rather interesting, since it’s so far out of the realm of my experiences. I’ve read a lot of books that talk about military events, but always from above, rather than what the experiences would have been like for the grunts.

It was an interesting book, but it was weird and overly preachy on philosophies that hold water about as well as a colander. There were no consistent characters to develop an attachment to (even Johnny was really more of a vehicle than a character), and there was little to nothing of plot. But some of the ideas presented were interesting, and Heinlein does construct scenery quite well.

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Contact by Carl Sagan

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Read: 22 November, 2012

Ellie Arroway is the director of the controversial Argus Project, which scans the skies for any evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial beings. After years of failure, finally, she receives a series of prime numbers that could not have been generated naturally.

The movie version with Jodie Foster was one of my favourite movies in my early teens, so Contact has been on my reading list for a while. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to my hopes.

The writing style was very detached, telling the reader about the characters – sometimes even very private details – without ever allowing us to ever really get to know them. There were also fact-checking issues that I found rather jarring, such as when visiting France, Ellie sees a sign for the Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP) and she reads it “as the Russian word for beer, with the middle letter inverted left to right.” Thing is, that would be pronounced “Veer” in Russian, not “beer.” And, in any case, the Russian word for beer is “pivo.”

I also felt that Sagan’s agenda was too forward. I get that there are very few female scientists in literature, and those that do make it are generally socially awkward or “mannish.” So I really do appreciate that Sagan gives us a highly competent female scientist while still being very feminine. And, of course, Saga is very blunt about the extra hurdles in Ellie’s career path that her male colleagues don’t need to deal with. But the constant reminders of her gender, of her application of makeup, of her dress, of her choice in jewellery, of her lovers (and sexual rating of nearly every male she meets) served the opposite purpose, actually making me feel self-conscious about my gender.

The discussions of religion were interesting, but the “now we’re both searchers!” ending felt too contrived. The “moon landing denier” stand-in – Michael Kitz – was frustrating and, I felt, unnecessary. The difference between most moon landing deniers and Kitz is that Kitz actually has a lot of political power. For him to concoct such a crazy and baseless pseudo-explanation for “what really happened” simply does not make sense. After spending two trillion dollars, why would the governments of the world just suddenly change their minds and all work together to erase the experiment?

I’m glad that I’ve finally read Contact and can, at last, cross it off my list, but it was a struggle to keep going. After seeing the amazing movie that they made from it, it was a disappointing read.

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The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers

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Read: 7 November, 2012

Brendan Doyle has received a rather strange invitation. He has been asked to give a lecture on Samuel Taylor Coleridge and is being flown all the way to the UK and offered at least $5,000 to do it. The mystery deepens when Darrow, a very wealthy but dying man, explains that the lecture is merely to be the introduction to an evening during which Darrow, Doyle, and several guests will be meeting the actual Coleridge.

Time travel is very difficult to write about. Between the paradoxes and trying to explain why characters don’t foresee what’s coming, it can quickly devolve into comedy. So let me just start by saying that Powers has done it. He’s pulled it off – perfectly and beautifully.

Apart from Doyle, there isn’t too much depth to the characters – since this is mainly an action-driven novel – but they are still interesting and entertaining. Of course, there are types: the woman posing as a man to avenge a lost love, the crazy clown/magician, etc.

But what I especially loved about the novel is how the facts to come are laid out early on (thanks to time travel), so the focus is not on what happens next but rather on how will we get there.

Unfortunately, the climax was something of a let down. While the rest of the plot seemed carefully planned so that everything was predicted through past (and sometimes future) events, the climax had multiple elements that just seemed to come out of left field – in one case, this actually involved introducing a brand new rule for the fictive universe. It’s almost as though Powers just got bored and wanted to move on to his next project. It’s a shame, because it’s a rather big blemish on an otherwise very enjoyable novel.

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Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

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Read: 21 March, 2012

I watched the movie a few days after my son was born, while I was still riding the hormonal high and at the peak of my weepiness. Because of this, it’s hard to say just how much of the movie’s awesome was because of how awesome the movie was, and how much was enhanced by my emotional state. Regardless, I feel confident in saying that if you haven’t watched the movie yet, do so as soon as you get the chance.

I was so enchanted by the movie that I decided to pick up the book and give it a try.

I have to say that the movie did an amazing job of capturing the book, and of translating them into the silver screen format. But still, I found the two to be very different. The movie is, primarily, a love story. It’s about the love shared by Tommy and Kathy, and the sense that time is running out for them. Kathy’s monologue at the end makes this focus quite clear.

The book, on the other hand, seems to focus more on the characters and their growth, which is continually undercut by the reminder of their eventual donation. I couldn’t help but feel that Ishiguro was commenting on the way that we, generally, refuse to talk to our children about death and the urgency of living well. He’s highlighted the problem by speeding up the timeline, but that’s about it. Perhaps the most striking element of both the book and the movie is just how normal Kathy and her friends are, which is quite different from the norm in the dystopian genre.

I did enjoy the book, and I was impressed by the skill with which Ishiguro smashed many of the conventions of the science fiction / dystopia genres, but this is one instance where I’m tempted to say that the book has little to add that the movie doesn’t convey. And while there’s a lot of value in Ishiguro’s depth and the slow pace at which he covers his topic, I don’t feel like anything important was lost in the transference to the movie format and, if anything, the story may have benefited from conciseness of the format.

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Series: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

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The Hunger Games is a dystopian series set in the distant future Appalachia. The world – as much as we know of it – has destroyed itself and been reborn as Panem. In the centre is the Capital, where people live in luxury and entertain themselves with fashion and the drama of the Hunger Games. Around it are twelve districts, each focusing on a single industry so that all dependent on each other for the basic necessities of life. Once, 75 years before the series begins, the districts rebelled in what has come to be known as the Dark Days. There were thirteen districts then, but the Capital destroyed one in the battle. To ensure that the districts would never again seek to rebel, the Capital instituted the Hunger Games – a gladiatorial event in which two children, a boy and a girl, from each district is selected by lottery and entered into the arena, there to fight to the death until only one child is left.

The odds were in Katniss Everdeen’s favour and she was not called to be a tribute for the Capital’s Hunger Games, but her little sister was not so lucky. When Katniss volunteers herself to take her sister’s place, her personal refusal to accept the Capital’s rules lay the groundwork for a return of the Dark Days and the possible extinction of what’s left of human society.

Are you on Team Peeta or Team Gale?

The Hunger Games series followed many conventions that could have reduced it to a superficial, silly novel – the love triangle between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale perfectly illustrates my point. It would have been all too easy for the Hunger Games to become about Katniss’s “boy troubles,” to make her struggle be about the men in her life. The narrative does flirt with this at a few points, but it does so in a psychologically real way that preserves Katniss’s identity as an individual in her own right, rather than as an object for the competition between two males. As Shoshana Kessock points out, the only real team in the Hunger Games is Team Katniss.

Living vs Surviving

Katniss’s reaction to her dystopian government grows and changes in interesting ways. In the beginning, she is resigned to her fate, content merely with survival. She dismisses the interests of both boys in her love triangle because she cannot envision a future with either, a future which may include having children, in a society that would allow have something like the Hunger Games. It’s Peeta who offers her an alternative to simple survival – living – which, paradoxically, may mean martyrdom. His refusal to sacrifice who he is as a person to play by the Capital’s rules is a lesson to Katniss that simply surviving isn’t enough. She comes back to this lesson again and again through the series, each time understanding a little more about what Peeta meant.

Coming back to the romance tropes, it was so refreshing to see Katniss and Peeta help each other grow as individuals rather than simply learning to don a new identity at the expense of the self. Bella Swan, of Twilight fame is a perfect example of the latter. She sheds her self to take up the identity of her paramour (in this case, his identity as a vampire). In the Hunger Games, on the other hand, Peeta serves as a lesson, but it changes Katniss in a way that is unique to herself. She doesn’t become a copy of Peeta, but rather a person who has been shaped by her relationship with him.

Moral Complexity

In the first book of the series, the sides are fairly clear: the Capital is bad, the Districts are victims. But by the second book, Katniss is unable to reconcile her hatred for the Capital with her love for the Capital people in her life, such as her design team, Cinna, or even Effie. By the third book, the moral line that divides the sides becomes even more complicated as we meet the people of District 13 and fine them to be something less than the rescuers they have presented themselves to be. As with so many of our real world revolutions, when the rebels win the war, they adopt all the habits they had so recently fought against. There’s a lesson there for readers about trying to fit groups into a “good guy vs bad guy” narrative, and about thinking too uncritically about one’s in-group.

Image

Much of the series revolves around Katniss’s image. Throughout the series, characters are always dressing Katniss, using her appearance to tell a narrative that promotes their own agenda. I kept thinking of our fashions and the way that clothes often display the maker’s branding in a highly visible spot, using their customers as walking billboards. Through it all, Katniss struggles to keep hold of who she is as a person, an individual separate from the image is made to project.

There’s also a lesson here about the importance of image, and how powerful our appearances can be.

Conclusion

This series is absolutely fantastic. At only three books, there’s really no reason not to go out and read it. It’s very well written and excellently plotted. If you haven’t already, give it a try!

Edit: And hey, if you think that the Hunger Games (the actual games, not the books) were awesome, you can now experience them first hand (sort of)! Presenting “literary tourism.”

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The Hunger Games #3: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

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Read: 11 March, 2012

The Hunger Games ended when Katniss destroyed the barrier keeping the tributes in the arena, but the battle against the Capital is far from over. After an all-too-short glimpse of freedom, she finds herself yet again a pawn in someone else’s game – this time she is the Mockingjay, a symbol of the revolution used by the rebels and District 13 in their PR campaign.

I was worried about the third instalment of the Hunger Games series because so much could have been poorly handled. The love triangle between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale – which had been on hold while Katniss fought for the survival of herself and her loved ones – needed a resolution, and that might mean turning Katniss’s world towards ‘boy issues.’ The Capital had been set up as the baddies from the start, but Mockingjay is the first time we get to look at possible alternative rulers. It would have been so easy to maintain the perception of the Capital is the series’ baddies and reduce the conflict into a simplistic good vs evil conflict. And, lastly, the first two books in the series focused around a Hunger Game – what was left for the third? Surely we wouldn’t see another Hunger Game? But where else was there to go?

I was pleasantly surprised on all fronts. Collins navigated the standard whirlpools with much grace and ended the series powerfully. Even the “years later” epilogue fit the story and only increased the emotion, rather than feeling too removed from the events for the reader to process. I’m not ashamed to admit that I was in tears for much of the ending.

I really enjoyed the twist – yes, there’s a twist. It caught me by surprise, but only because it solved an issue that had been concerning me rather than because it was from “out on left field” or otherwise lacked sense. In retrospect, it fit Katniss perfectly.

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The Hunger Games #2: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

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Read: 5 March, 2012

After Katniss defied the Capitol in Hunger Games, forcing them to allow two winners of the Games for the first time in their history, she returns home and tries to patch together a life that has been irrevocably changed by recent events. Her budding feelings for Peeta become even more confused now that Gale is once more by her side. But for now, she’s tried to put the events of the Games aside as best she can while she carves out a new routine. Unfortunately, the Capitol is not so willing to forget her defiance.

Discussing Hunger Games with a friend on Facebook recently, someone chimed in to say that they truly enjoyed Catching Fire and actually considered it superior to the first book. I’m not sure I agree, but I can certainly understand where she was coming from. It starts out fairly slow, showing us a Katniss who is trying to make sense of her post-Games life, but then the story really catches fire (har har) and I found it impossible to put down. And with the fictional world and character exposition taking care of by the first book, Catching Fire was free to focus on development.

There were some weird authorial issues. I don’t want to give too much away, so… this next bit is a total spoiler. Sorry. So, in both books, Haymitch communicates with Katniss in the games through the gifts he either gives her or does not giver her. So when there are five people in Katniss’s alliance and they keep receiving bread rolls in multiples of 6, I assumed that Haymitch was trying to tell Katniss that her group should be looking to include Chaff (since Chaff was Haymitch’s friend, and because Peeta had so easily remembered that he was still unaccounted for). And yet while much page space was given to Katniss trying to interpret all of Haymitch’s other gifts, she barely gives the rolls a second thought. The only reason I could think of for this is because Suzanne Collins knows the answer, knows that it isn’t anything she wants Katniss to guess, so she’s just dropped it. It feels like a missed opportunity for some character development. Up until that point, Haymitch’s gifts were always communicating to Katniss, but this time the message was meant for her allies. Katniss could have tried to guess the meaning and come to the wrong conclusion, and then had to deal with her feelings later about Haymitch “cheating” on her (which, frankly, would have made her anger at Haymitch’s supposed betrayal at the start of Mockingjay – which I’ve only just started reading, so forgive me if this does get covered – far more palatable).

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The Hunger Games #1: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

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Read: 11 February, 2012

Every year in Panem, two children are chosen by lottery from each of the twelve districts to compete in the Hunger Games. Twenty-four kids enter the arena to fight to the death, and only one can survive.

The general story is a fairly common one, and I don’t do well with stories heavy on action, so Hunger Games could have gone quite badly. But the action was just present enough to keep the story interesting without ever making me feel “actioned out.” As for the plot, the interesting characters keep it fresh.

There is a love triangle, which seems to be a required theme in these sorts of books, but it never felt forced. Katniss naturally starts to develop feelings for Peeta when she finds herself in a life-or-death, high stress situation. Rather than coming off as a silly girl unable to decide what she wants, Katniss is instead confused by the stress of being so near death. I found this to be much more psychologically plausible and it avoided the demeaning perception of girls/women as too silly to know their own minds.

Even beyond the love story, the gender portrayals were refreshing. There are no helpless princesses in need of rescuing in The Hunger Games. Peeta is vulnerable, but even he shows enough strength to prevent the story from simply being a flat reversal of gender stereotypes. Katniss is strong, but realistically so, with failings and weak moments that don’t feel token or trivial. She is a genuinely strong person, and a complete character to boot.

It was a bit of a shock to read The Hunger Games right after reading Clash of Kings. For one thing, the simplicity of the plot made for a difficult switch in my reading. But once my brain caught up, I found that I truly enjoyed the book. The setting was a dangerous one, and the novel could have easily devolved into a bludgeoning “message,” but while the criticism of our present world are very much there, I never felt like it was overly forced.

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