Review of Enemy Mine by Barry Longyear

(Please note this review is for the novella Enemy Mine, not the novel.)

Sweeping the major American novella awards, Barry B. Longyear’s Enemy Mine certainly caught the genre’s eye when it was published in 1979.  A film produced six years later (a film which unfortunately is hindered by poor special effects), the exposure took the story beyond the book world and moved it into the attention of the general public.  A tale of confronting Otherness, its treatment in the years since is perhaps a good indication of the novella’s innate integrity.

Opening mid-action—mid-punch even, Enemy Mine begins with a soldier of Earth in hand to hand combat with an alien Drac after their fighter jets have crashed on the surface of an uninhabited planet.  Towering tidal waves, scarce food, and little wood for making fire, the harsh living conditions quickly force the two to cooperate or die.  Lost at sea, scavenging among the rocks, and language problems all around, the two eventually form an accord that allows for a sense of normalcy to life.  But when tragedy strikes, a whole new set of problems must be solved.

Review of A.R.M. by Larry Niven

Larry Niven’s 1975 novella A.R.M. is decidedly of the sub-genre of science fiction called puzzle stories (the cover telling the rest of the story).  A locked door murder mystery with a conceit of science at the nexus, it oozes the familiarity of a police procedural yet integrate theories of physics to form a story the mainstream sci-fi community will enjoy.

Gil Hamilton is a detective for A.R.M., a branch of the United Nations chartered with investigating organ theft (via murder), enforcing the fertility laws (regulating motherhood), and lastly (for purposes which suit the story only), monitoring technology which could create new weapons affecting world economy or the balance of political power in the world.  Called to a crime scene at the beginning of the story, a man carrying a fishing pole is only the beginning of the weirdness which awaits Gil inside the penthouse of the rich and reclusive scientist Raymond Sinclair.  A strangely shaped machine hovering over a perfect circle of burned grass in the living room, a partially mummified man lying inside, Gil’s investigation does not kickoff on standard terms to say the least.  The fact the mummified man’s watch is spinning backwards at 7 seconds per minute is, however, what turns it bizarre.

Review of The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds is a classic novel depicting London laid waste by alien catastrophe with an underlying commentary on the social, political, psychological, and religious state of Britain.  Most certainly a work heavily influenced by Wells’ 1898 novel, John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids (1951) likewise lays waste to London in apocalyptic style.  The novel a hero’s tale, however, it forgoes thematic layering to tell the conventional tale of one man against the odds—as contrived as they are. 

Awakened in a hospital bed by silence, Bill Masen can’t wait to remove the bandages covering his eyes to know the reason.  Partially blinded while researching triffids, a carnivorous, poisonous plant which spreads aggressively, he was forced into the emergency ward.  Removing the bandages, Masen finds the reason for the silence: catastrophe.  One of the lucky ones, a meteor shower that passed Earth has rendered all those who stared at its iridescent beauty, blind.  The sightless stagger the streets, groping for food and companionship, some choosing to end it all with a jump out a window.  Masen eventually coming across a woman who can also see, the two make their plans together.  But with blind gangs roaming the streets led by others who can still see and death and chaos all around, their survival is anything but certain.

Review The Mountains of Mourning by Lois McMaster Bujold

A sub-cult of science fiction, Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga is one of the genre’s most popular.  Combining the devices and motifs of space opera and fairy tale to examine soft science fiction themes, the reason it is beloved is obvious.  Published 7th and occurring 7th in the internal chronology (as of mid-2013), The Mountains of Mourning is a novella describing events in Miles’ life as he exits the military academy and enters the real world of responsibility.

The story opens early one morning when Miles returns home after a morning’s exercise to find an adamant young woman at the gate seeking justice for the murder of someone very close.  After presenting her to his parents, Miles sets off to pay his respects to dead relatives in honor of his successful completion of the Barrayan military academy.  He is called back a short time later, however, and instructed to accompany the young woman back to her village to settle the injustice.  Walking into a den of tradition and prejudices, discovering the murderer is only half of Miles’ problem: administering the punishment proves to be more troublesome.

Review of The Battle for the Abaco Reefs by Hilbert Schenk

Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead is a novel with its heart in the right place.  Improving cultural understanding and the development of self the subjects under discussion, it was unfortunate that Card used a super-emo man to literally and figuratively drive the demons of discrimination and repression from the scene.  Though aiming at a wildly different theme, Hilbert Schenk’s 1979 novella The Battle of the Abaco Reef, unfortunately, has the same general problem: great destination, poor road chosen to arrive there.

I normally summarize the premise of a story at this point in a review.  However, as the novella’s opening paragraph indirectly accomplishes more, I will allow it to speak for itself: 

The fall wind blew steadily from the east, dead across Elbow Cay, and the big, vertical-axis wind machines, running synchronously in the steady breeze, gentled the island with their hushahushahusha, a giant snoozing in the lowest frequencies. Susan Peabody toyed with her coffee and half watched the tiny, jewel-like TV screen at her elbow, thinking of nothing in particular. Or, really, much in particular such as the department, and the university, and the screwing, literal and figurative, she had taken from that bastard… But that was already six months past, and how big a plum would it have been anyway, in a riotous, unheated Boston?… Susan, a forty-year-old, tall, thin woman, her brown hair cut short and severe, her thin lips pressed thinner still, thought to herself, hating herself as she thought it: I have a good face, high color, a straight nose and a strong chin. I have tits and my legs are long. Oh, for God’s sake!

Review of The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem

“Mighty King, here is a story, a nest of stories, with cabinets and cupboards, about Trurl the constructor and his wonderfully nonlinear adventures.”

I can think of no better introduction to Stanislaw Lem’s 1967 The Cyberiad (Cyberiada in the original Polish) than the line above taken from the text.  Capturing the atmosphere of storytelling, the quirky, entirely singular imagination behind it, and the meta-human perspective suffusing every word, thought, and concept innate to the stories, the quote is a mini-excerpt of one of the most timeless, creative, and insightful collections science fiction has ever produced.  There is nothing like the constructors Trurl and Klaupacius in literature, and never will be.

Imagination oozing off the pages and pooling on the floor, The Cyberiad is a collection that continually tops itself.  Each story containing another fresh, original idea, it bursts with humor, wisdom, and unquantifiable things between; Lem is in touch with both the gravitas of humanity and its foibles.  Two robot constructors the stars of the show, the tales of Trurl and Klaupacius are at turns absurd, pitiful, happy, adventurous, clever, egotistic, salvatory—everything that makes us human but they not.  The pair being master constructors, most every story sees them whisked away to some location—with and against their will—to create for some deluded being the fulfillment of their dreams.  One king, for example, requests the “best hiding place ever” while another the ultimate quarry; a multi-eyed robot found living on an abandoned asteroid demands the knowledge of the universe, while in another story the greatest poet ever is built of machine parts. (In the end, the electronic bard proved immortal; every time someone tried to dispose of it, the machine would write a poem so pitiful the person couldn’t bring themselves to go about their duty).  

Review of the Oxford Concise English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary (2nd ed.)

The Oxford Concise English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary is an invaluable tool for any person who wants to learn, or who has any understanding of Chinese up to an upper-intermediate level and needs a reference.  At 1,100 pages and 26,000 entries, it covers the overwhelming majority of words and phrases used regularly in each language, but remains roughly the size of the average paperback novel, making it ideal for students just starting to learn Chinese or those who are well on their way to fluency.  Those looking for advanced language reference or phrases and expressions simply for travel purposes would do better looking elsewhere.

The Chinese half is organized alphabetically according to Chinese standard pinyin (not the Wade-Giles, Yale, or any other outdated romanization).  Simplified characters are used (though many traditional characters are presented for expository purposes).  There is likewise a radical index which lists radicals, their conjugations, and is completely cross-referenced with the pinyin section.  (Any serious student of Chinese will find this most useful.)  For each character, its function (noun, verb, etc.) and its meaning(s) in English are given.  Examples phrases, sentences, and expressions are provided, as needed, for the purpose of clarification, of which there are innumerable instances.  The English section (organized as any English dictionary) contains phonetic pronunciations (British English) as well as various and multiple analogies in Chinese. 

Review of Hardfought by Greg Bear

As much as it is a display of surreal visuals, Greg Bear’s 1983 Hardfought is also a novella featuring an engaging, important theme.  Seemingly in dialogue with Starship Troopers, Bear proves following orders is a deeper, more convoluted human idea than Heinlein made it out to be.  In line with the work of Ursula Le Guin or C.J. Cherryh, an interesting premise is mixed with exploration of the meaning of Other in a deep space, military setting.

Told in alternating form, Hardfought is on one side the story of Aryz, a branch mind of the Senexi tasked with discovering a way to communicate with the humans they’ve recently captured so as to fight the pestilent species.  On the other is Prufax, a (post) human fighter being indoctrinated in the ways of war against the Senexi.  Primed for her first battle, little does she know she will soon meet Aryz on his turf. 

Review of Aztecs by Vonda McIntyre

Aboriginal young men in Australia undergo circumcision and are told “men’s stories” as their initiation into adulthood.  There is an African tribe that requires its initiates to hunt a lion.  And American fraternities have their own variety of hazings, from drinking goldfish laced vodka to lying on the dividing line of a busy street.   It can thus be imagined that in sci-fi, the possibilities for rites of passage are limitless.

Focusing on one such passage in the life of a young woman, Vonda N. McIntyre’s 1977 Aztecs is the story of Laenae, a Pilot.  Sacrificing her heart for a mechanical pump which makes it physically possible to navigate long distance freighters through the black of space, the title is all too real for her.  The novella dealing with Laenae’s transition in emotional, human terms rather than via action or excitement, this is the more subtle, mature side of sci-fi.

Review of Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

There are many schools of thought regarding the best manner in which a human can develop into being a responsible member of society.  There are different types of institutions and beliefs, their programs hard to soft.  There are cultures which value life within the family.  And there are lifestyles which promote a lack of rules, everything free and easy as a means to discovering responsibility.  Literature not immune, there are also many works of fiction which, directly or indirectly, admonish a manner or social environment in which a person can be brought to accountability for self and society—Huxley’s Island, Wells’ A Modern Utopia, and Hesse’s Siddharta among them.  Feeling a manifesto as to the best mode of human development, Robert Heinlein’s 1959 Starship Troopers is another such novel.  As much divisive as it is a product of the times, the novel has remained in print through the decades—and history—which have transpired since.  Worth a read regardless whether the reader ultimately agrees or disagrees with the ideology presented, the length of this review will testify to the fact it is indeed a thought-provoking novel.

It is the future.  The world is at peace, and all the countries have been united under one government: the Federation.  In order to be a citizen—a voting member of society—you need to serve.  Enter Johnny Rico, the son of rich, controlling parents.  Wanting respectability rather than simply to follow the path his father envisions (university degree in economics and a high position in the family business after), Johnny rebels and joins the Military Infantry with the aim of passing boot camp to become a citizen.  Basic training molding and shaping him in ways that shock, Johnny gets what he wants and much, much more.