Stand on Zanzibar

A vision of the future? Source: Here

"Hipcrime: you committed one when you opened up this book. Keep it up. It's our only hope."

This is easily one of the strangest, most unconventional books I've read. A rarity among science fiction in that its predictions are eerily close to how events came to be, and still are. 

Stand on Zanzibar was written in 1968 by John Brunner and won the Hugo Award in 1969. The book is set in the then-future date of 2010, with the world population having grown to seven billion and increasing tensions between the American and East Asian superpowers. Extrapolating from existing social, economic and technological trends, Brunner creates a world eerily like our own, with several predictions hitting awfully close for comfort:

• (1) Random acts of violence by crazy individuals, often taking place at schools, plague society in Stand on Zanzibar.
• (2) The other major source of instability and violence comes from terrorists, who are now a major threat to U.S. interests, and even manage to attack buildings within the United States.
• (3) Prices have increased sixfold between 1960 and 2010 because of inflation. (The actual increase in U.S. prices during that period was sevenfold, but Brunner was close.)
• (4) The most powerful U.S. rival is no longer the Soviet Union, but China. However, much of the competition between the U.S. and Asia is played out in economics, trade, and technology instead of overt warfare.
• (5) Europeans have formed a union of nations to improve their economic prospects and influence on world affairs. In international issues, Britain tends to side with the U.S., but other countries in Europe are often critical of U.S. initiatives.
• (6) Africa still trails far behind the rest of the world in economic development, and Israel remains the epicenter of tensions in the Middle East.
• (7) Although some people still get married, many in the younger generation now prefer short-term hookups without long-term commitment.
• (8) Gay and bisexual lifestyles have gone mainstream, and pharmaceuticals to improve sexual performance are widely used (and even advertised in the media).
• (9) Many decades of affirmative action have brought blacks into positions of power, but racial tensions still simmer throughout society.
• (10) Motor vehicles increasingly run on electric fuel cells. Honda (primarily known as a motorcycle manufacturers when Brunner wrote his book) is a major supplier, along with General Motors.
• (11) Yet Detroit has not prospered, and is almost a ghost town because of all the shuttered factories. However. a new kind of music — with an uncanny resemblance to the actual Detroit techno movement of the 1990s — has sprung up in the city.
• (12) TV news channels have now gone global via satellite.
• (13) TiVo-type systems allow people to view TV programs according to their own schedule.
• (14) Inflight entertainment systems on planes now include video programs and news accessible on individual screens at each seat.
• (15) People rely on avatars to represent themselves on video screens — Brunner calls these images, which either can look like you or take on another appearance you select — “Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere.”
• (16) Computer documents are generated with laser printers.
• (17) A social and political backlash has marginalized tobacco, but marijuana has been decriminalized. 

•  Source: https://themillions.com/2013/03/the-weird-1969-new-wave-sci-fi-novel-that-correctly-predicted-the-current-day.html 

What makes it stand out as one of the most innovative examples of the New Wave is Brunner's inter-mixing of narrative with worldbuilding chapters, providing background from sources like advertisements, newspaper extracts, song lyrics, book quotes and the like. Co-opted from John Dos Passos' USA Trilogy, the result of this narrative construction is a truly sprawling world that looks and feels real. The large cast of characters gives a broad cross-section of this future society, giving it real depth in its examinations of people just trying to get by from day to day; and yet even with this massive cast the book never feels bloated.

The structure of the book splits narrative and worldbuilding into several sections:

• "Continuity" - main narrative is largely contained here.

• "Tracking with Closeups" - used to take a closer look at supporting characters or build a further picture of the state of the world.

• "The Happening World" - short descriptive passages embodying the vibrant, cramped nature of the world.

• "Context" - fairly self-explanatory really. The main setting for the novel, comprised of headlines, advertisements and further texts, and in one chapter, actual headlines from the 1960s.

Even with the interblending of several plot threads the main plot remains easy to follow. The main narrative centers around two roommates, Norman Niblock House and Donald Hogan. Norman is a rising executive at General Technics, using his "Afram" (American) heritage to move higher up in the company. Donald Hogan appears for all intents and purposes to be a student, but is in fact a spy working for the U.S. government that can be called up at any time. Their plots provide the through-line for the rest of the book, keeping everything anchored and preventing the plot meandering too much.

Looking at the predictions above, it's hard not to be a little awed at how close to the mark Brunner. Yes, certainly some of his more specific predictions did not come to be but just extrapolating from then-present socio-economic trends it stands as a testament to Brunner's talent that he came as close as he did.

It wasn't an easy book to read, and Brunner isn't interested in playing catch-up for anyone lost in the narrative. But it is an immensely rewarding experience, and I hope to be able to experience his strange new world again.

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever

A haunting collection. Source: Here

"Man is an animal whose dreams come true and kill him."

I enjoy short story anthologies for the reason that they provide a wide corpus of an author's work, usually across their career and hosting such a wide variety of stories that you get to see how they write for different characters, contexts and narratives. Sometimes the results are good, sometimes not so good - and sometimes you get a book like this. I put off writing this review just because of the sheer impact these stories had on me as a whole, and I wanted to collect my thoughts before writing about such a haunting piece of literature.

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever is a collection of 18 science fiction and fantasy short stories written by James Tiptree Jr. across the length of her writing career and covering human nature, biological essentialism, gender and sexuality, metaphysics and our own perception of the world we live in. Needless to say it isn't your usual sci-fi - and it makes for such a vivid set of tales that still ring with me now even months after reading it.

Just reading up on Tiptree herself makes for an informative read. Tiptree itself is a pseudonym, her real name being Alice Bradley Sheldon. Her mother worked as a writer and her father was a lawyer, Bradley enjoyed travels with them from an early age. Initially working as a graphic artist, a painter and then an art critic, she joined the United States Army Air Forces in 1942, later promoted to major. She would later study for a Bachelor of Arts degree at American University (1957-59) and gain a doctorate at George Washington University in 1967 in Experimental Psychology, also submitting science fiction stories under the name James Tipree Jr., not just to protect her academic reputation but due to the sadly accurate perception that stories written under male names weren't unfairly disregarded. She's quoted as saying:

"A male name seemed like good camouflage. I had the feeling that a man would slip by less observed. I've had too many experiences in my life of being the first woman in some damned occupation."

Certainly, the common thread through these stories are women and their treatment by the society they live in; and oftentimes their attempts at escape. Consider "The Screwfly Solution", which posits misogyny as an infectious disease with lethal consequences. Or perhaps "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" where a group of male astronauts displaced in time arrive to a future Earth solely populated by women. In "The Women Men Don't See" both women choose to leave with aliens rather than stay on Earth, following the monsters they don't know over they monsters they do. There's such variety, such a fertile imagination at display - and the questions she grapples with elevate her work beyond just pulpy sci-fi.

They are dark stories though. Women are often beaten, powerless, at the mercy of men. But is that so different from our world? Yes, the stories border on downright depressing but that's their whole point; highlighting just how messy and tragic our own one is. You'll notice I'm waxing poetic but that's just because of the ride this book took me on. I'd definitely recommend not whizzing through it, this is a story collection to absorb and think on instead of consuming it all at once.

I came out of that book changed, and those stories still stick with me today. Alice Sheldon had a voice and a talent in their own league, and there haven't been many like her since. Certainly not for the faint of heart but I'd heartily recommend it to any S.F. fan willing to try something different.

Altered Carbon

Your body is not who you are. Source: Here

"You live that long, things start happening to you. You get too impressed with yourself. Ends up, you think you’re God. Suddenly the little people, thirty, maybe forty years old, well, they don’t really matter anymore. You’ve seen whole societies rise and fall, and you start to feel you’re standing outside it all, and none of it really matters to you."

With the Netflix series upcoming this Friday, I thought I'd finally stop putting off this book like I've been doing for the past year or so and I can't believe I hadn't read it sooner. Even as someone who doesn't really read a lot of cyberpunk (the most I've delved into the genre was Neuromancer) I was thoroughly entertained with the world displayed in Altered Carbon and the noir-ish feel about it all.

Written by Richard Morgan, Altered Carbon is set in the twenty-fifth century, where technological advances have rendered death a mere inconvenience. Human consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve"), with murder referred to as Organic Damage. Those wealthy and powerful enough to sleeve themselves into new bodies are referred to as Meths, short for the long-lived Biblical figure Methuselah; everyone else is put "on stack" until a new sleeve becomes available.

Still with me? It's a fair amount to take in all at once, and the way Morgan handles it had me in doubt over this being his first published novel.The ease with which he introduces these new concepts and builds this strange new world had me impressed and eager to read. And the strength of the ideas alone is enough to make me recommend this book: how does humanity change when death is no longer the threat it was? What happens when those in power can no longer die? If people can sleeve into all sorts of new bodies, are racial/sexual divides as present? The possibilities of this world are endless.

The main storyline concerns protagonist Takeshi Kovacs, newly resleeved in a new body to investigate the murder of Laurens Bancroft, a Meth whose death has been dismissed by the police as suicide. The search takes Kovacs into the dark heart of Bay City to find out just why everyone around him seems to be so insistent on letting this case lie. Honestly, while I appreciate this story as the spine supporting Morgan's worldbuilding, I didn't really find myself invested in it as much as I'd have liked to, though maybe that's just personal preference talking.

A lot of comparisons have been made to Blade Runner, though I'd argue Altered Carbon sits rather at the other end of the spectrum. Both ask pertinent questions about what it means to be human, but where Blade Runner is cold and mechanical, Altered Carbon is sensual and electric, teeming with sensuality - the various virtual whorehouses will speak to that. And the sex scenes. Let's just say the number 69 remains pretty popular in the future. It's full of life in a way that Blade Runner isn't.

Not only that but there is action aplenty to keep you occupied. A stunning display of well-written violence should keep readers entertained whilst still mulling over the implications of the ideas presented. There's a good enough balance between the two that I didn't find the book overly indulgent in its descriptions of fight scenes, though there may be one or two scenes that some readers just will not click with - the virtual torture scene comes to mind.

On the whole I'm sort of kicking myself for not having read this one earlier. If you're a fan of cyberpunk, detective stories or just want some good action, Altered Carbon is the read for you.

Oh, and give the Netflix series some support this Friday: