Review of The Word for World is Forest by Ursula Le Guin

Given Ursula Le Guin’s penchant for mixing real world social, political, and cultural concerns, it should come as no surprise that her voice could be heard on the Vietnam War.  The Word for World is Forest, published in 1976, is some of Le Guin’s most overt commentary on war and colonization.  A revision of her eponymous 1972 novella, the novel comments directly on the presence of major political powers in less-developed areas for profit, all in highly personal and well-told fashion.  

The Word for World is Forest is set entirely on the planet Athshe.  Humanity (called the Terrans) has arrived and set up mining, logging, and other resource-based enterprises, enslaving the indigenous to perform labor in the process.  A smaller, greener, hairier version of humanity, the natives also sleep in a significantly different fashion.  In fact sleeping little at all, they rather fall into a state of lucid dreaming at random periods of the day.  Thinking them to be lazy and avoiding work, the humans, in particular a man named Davidson, routinely beat and otherwise abuse the Athsheans, forcing them to perform the labor whose profits are sent to Earth.  It isn’t long, however, before the natives rebel against the humans, the resulting fight deciding the sentient fate of Athshe.

Review of The Stone Canal by Ken Macleod

The Stone Canal, second in Ken MacLeod’s Fall Revolution series, is a difficult book to write a review of.  The reason is the story’s structure.  Broken in half, the chapters alternate to tell the first and second halves separately, with the ending joining the two together at the middle into a single whole.  The details at the end of one revealing important information about the beginning of the other, and vice versa, it’s quite easy to wander into spoiler territory writing a summary.  (Be warned, the majority of reviews I have read spoiled large portions and some of the major surprises in the novel.)  It’s best to start with Macleod’s introduction, and leave the rest to instinct and hope. 

 

In classic sci-fi style, the opening page of The Stone Canal features a man waking from the dead in the middle of a desert on a strange planet.  Named Jonathan Wilde, the last memory he has is being shot by a fair weather friend, David Reid, on Earth.  A robot is standing beside Wilde waiting for him to come to consciousness, and together the two wander into the nearest town.  Feeling like the wild west, the town is on a planet called New Mars and is riddled with canals, rundown concrete buildings, and a healthy mood of chaos and freedom amidst the robots, net tech, and biological misfits.  Also walking the streets of the town is a cyborg woman.  Named Dee Model, she is fleeing her owner after experiencing the epiphany that she has the right to her own autonomy.  Seeing Wilde in a bar, the two have a brief ‘don’t I know you moment’ before the goons arrive.  It is not the last time the two cross paths.

Review of Creatures of Light and Darkness by Roger Zelazny

In the early part of his career, and in an indirect sense throughout it, Roger Zelazny combed Earth’s cultures, religions, and legends for story material.  His brilliant Lord of Light and This Immortal riffing off Hindu/Buddhist and Greek mythology respectively, he established himself as writer who combined the classic themes of myth and legend with more modern, imaginative tropes of science fiction and fantasy.  His 1969 Creatures of Light and Darkness is no exception.

Egyptian myth and cosmology the source material, Creatures… is an epic tale of warring gods where space and time have little meaning—or all the meaning if the story as a whole is viewed.  Stakeholders in universal power, Osiris, Set, Anubis, Isis, and a variety of other deities from Egyptian myth come alive in the narrative.  But the story is also grounded in semi-reality.  Regardless whether a far future vision or simply an extra-terrestrial fantasy setting, six versions of human life inhabit six worlds in the Middle Realm of the gods’ domain.  Some worlds more advanced than others with the gods being able to control and apply technology at will, there is a distinct sci-fi edge to what is otherwise a full-on fantasy story.

Review of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Biting wit, a well-told tale, and a spiritual truth perfectly outlaid, these are the hallmarks of Oscar Wilde’s one and only excursion into novel land.  The Picture of Dorian Gray initially published in 1890, Wilde played off the Faust legend to write his own tale of moral decay, beauty, and vice.  Controversial upon its release, the book is bland by today’s publishing standards.  Its message, however, remains as timeless as word itself.

Set at the time of the novel’s publication, the story opens with Dorian Gray posing for the artist Basil Hallward at the home of Lord Henry Wotton.  Basil’s tongue sharper than any knife, the conversation he has with Lord Wotton intrigues Dorian.  Coming to believe that beauty and sensuality are the only virtues worth pursuing, Dorian swears by the portrait Hallward produces that it will grow old, not himself.  Emerging into society a different person, Dorian proceeds to live the life he’d sworn by, indulging in women and the excesses of luxury at will.  The end of his hedonistic endeavors, however, is not the product of his dreams.

Review of Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

Jules Verne is perhaps the single most important persona in the evolution of science fiction as a genre.  Seminally seminal to say the least, his books utilized and pushed beyond the limits of discovered reality to incorporate elements of the yet undiscovered in adventurous tales.  Appearing a century prior to the likes of Asimov, Bester, and Clarke, his novels of Earth’s exploration, though certainly dated by today’s standards, set a high bar for imagination, science, and entertainment rolled into one.

Journey to the Center of the Earth is Verne’s fifth major published work and sees the author finding form writing stories of exotic expeditions.  After cracking a secret message hidden within the saga Heimskringla, Professor Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel head to Iceland.  Hiring the services of the guide Hans Bjelke upon their arrival, they following the instructions of the encrypted message to a local volcano and enter the caldera.  The trio’s journey from there only becomes more adventurous by the page: what exists at Verne’s center of the Earth is anything but predictable.

Review of the Hand of Thrawn Duology by Timothy Zahn

Based on the success of Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy, Bantam and Lucas Arts offered several contracts for additional books in the Star Wars expanded universe.  Various works starting to appear toward the end of the 20th century, all dealt with different aspects of the fictional world.  Some told X-Wing stories, others tales from the Mos Eisley cantina, Jabba’s lair was expanded, and some picked up Zahn’s story where he’d left it at the end of The Last Command.  The universe had not heard the last of Zahn, however, and four years after the completion of the Thrawn trilogy, a new duology of books appeared that continued the main Star Wars storyline, picking up where other writers left off.  

Called the Hand of Thrawn duology, Zahn adds little new to the Star Wars universe, rather ties up a couple of important loose ends.  Working with the story infrastructure handed him by Lucas and that which he created in the original Thrawn trilogy, the books bring together two key characters in matrimony, as well cements the New Republic’s position in the universe.  The story divided between Specter of the Past and Vision of the Future, the writing is in the same solid style that Zahn previously displayed and generally continues to show a respect and understanding for all things Star Wars. There are, however, a few new items which show authorial license.  More importantly, the overall story is beginning to show its limits.

Review of A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

The transition from child- to adulthood is perhaps one of the most trying times of life.  Questing for social acceptance, over confidence, lack of compassion, angst that needs outlet, and being rebellious for rebelliousness’ sake are all parts of growing up for most young people.  There are times, however, that the behavior goes to the extreme.  Anthony Burgess’ wife victim to an act of random violence by a group of young men, in 1962 he decided to write a novel from the perspective of one such delinquent, A Clockwork Orange the result.   A delicious yet appalling stew of wildly creative language and violent behavior, Burgess digs deeper into the head of a sociopathic young man than is perhaps good for a sane man, but if the ending can be trusted, comes to a measure of peace for what transpired with his wife.

A Clockwork Orange is the story of Alex, the teenage leader of a gang of hooligan delinquents.  Terrors of the streets, Alex and his droogs—Georgie, Pete, and Dim—spend their nights arbitrarily stealing, beating, raping—preying upon society.  Taking pleasure in the anguish, the flow of blood and screams of pain set lights in their eyes and smiles on their faces.  And Alex’s parents are helpless to intervene; he skips school, tricks girls to bed with drugs, and lives a life entirely void of empathy.  Biting off more than he can chew one night out, Alex’s life takes a flip-flop after a flight of bravado.  But will the situation he suddenly finds himself in make any difference?

Review of Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett

Fifteenth Discworld novel and second to star the City Watch, Terry Pratchett’s 1993 Men at Arms is a funny romp on the streets of Ankh-Morpork that brings together some of his most beloved characters.  Compared to some other Discworld offerings, the novel is less focused thematically, but makes up for it with a quantity of trademark humor—slapstick, satire, wordplay, and otherwise—above and beyond what is standard in the series.

Men at Arms opens with Corporal Carrot Ironfoundersson writing home to his family, describing to them the current events of the City Watch in Ankh-Morpork.  A few new recruits have been landed, including a dwarf, a troll, and a woman—strange newcomers for what has been a WASP institution since the Watch took its place in the city.  Right off the bat the group’s tenor is tested by having to put down a minor dwarf-troll insurrection—the two groups’ enmity threatening to erupt violently.  Captain Vimes has also announced his retirement from the Watch.  He quickly discovers, however, his final days are to be anything but relaxing.  With a rogue member of the Assassin’s Guild chasing a fool dream to reinstate a king in mayor Vetinari’s place, Vimes must use all of his alcohol riddled wits to trace the mysterious assassin as he moves from one bizarre murder scene to another, the weapon of choice unlike anything the city has seen before.

Review of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

I’ve read statements claiming H. G. Wells is the father of science fiction, and there does appear a degree truth in it.  Certainly other writers had taken steps, most notably Jules Verne with his voyages extraordinaires, but it was Wells who latched onto the ideological potential of the genre and began writing stories.  Seeming to spawn a sub-genre with each book published, The War of the Worlds looks at humanity’s reaction to an alien invasion; The Invisible Man deals with identity problems; The Island of Dr. Moreau tackles biological modification; and The First Men in the Moon is a very early look at lunar life.  Each book a vehicle for his political agenda, these and other of the author’s works employ what are now standard sci-fi motifs to expound upon sociopolitical concepts.  Wells’ debut in long form, the 1898 novella The Time Machine, is one such book.

The Time Machine is a foremost frame story.  It opens from the point of view of an unnamed narrator at a dinner party hosted by a person called simply the Time Traveler.  Amongst the group sit men of learning—a medical doctor, psychologist, and others—who listen as the Time Traveler expounds upon dimensional physics, interest and discord arising in the discussion’s wake.  After demonstrating with a small time machine to the disbelief of some and amazement of others, the Time Traveler invites the group to return the following week, hoping to be able to report on a larger machine he has been constructing.  When the guests return, they find the Time Traveler strangely absent from his home.  But soon enough he emerges from the shop.  Weary in body, clothes in rags, and feet bloody through the socks, he begins the narrative of his adventure in time.

Review of The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss

The 19th century was a time of transmigration for Europe.  Thousands left continental shores for lands abroad, South America, Australia, the US, and beyond.  Ship travel the only method to access most of these destinations, the sea wasn’t always forgiving.  Not a few were sent to a watery grave, others crashing on strange shores.  Johann David Wyss’ 1812 The Swiss Family Robinson is the fantasy-esque tale of one such shipwreck.

The novel opens with said wreck.  The only remaining survivors a family of six, the group struggles to get ashore and find their bearings.  A father, mother, and four sons, what follows is a narrative recounting exotic survival in the wilds.  The group slowly explores the island they now call home.  They build better and safer homes, fight for life with food and predators, and towards the end of the novel, have an encounter they’d never dreamed of.  Adventure in the purest form, getting caught up in the family’s escapades of everyday life is a joy.