Blood Music

A very, very strange apocalypse. Source: Here

“Vergil Ulam had become a god. Within his flesh he carried hundreds of billions of intelligent beings.”

What a line, eh? Always the eye-opener to get readers to read onward, but I believe it's the ideas in this book that keep people reading on. 

Originally published in 1983 as a short story by Greg Egan, this story saw an expanded release in 1985. The main narrative concerns biologist Vergil Ulam who creates sentient blood cells (referred to as "noocytes"), and upon being ordered to get rid of his research by his employers he injects his creation into his own bloodstream to save it. 

From there on the results get very strange indeed, with the noocytes developing sentience and beginning with rapid modification of Ulam's body; first removing his allergies and fixing his eyesight and then making him faster and stronger. At one point Ulam can even hear the noocytes in his blood as a kind of "music" (hence the title). The noocytes don't stop there - did I mention Ulam was infectious? - and are transmitted to other hosts in due course, rapidly changing and subsuming them into biomass until the North American continent suffers this fate. A classic gray goo scenario written a year before the term was coined!

The novel plays out like a Cronenberg-type horror to begin with; first on the individual level with the noocytes changing Ulam from the inside and steadily increasing in scale with all of America being reshaped by the noocytes. There's one particular scene right in the middle narrated by a news reporter flying over the country as it begins to be reshaped into something new and surreal... the imagery there is equal parts beautiful and terrifying as you begin to see the scope of this new cataclysm. The book itself is structured in several phases: interphase, anaphase, prophase, metaphase, telophase, and interphase, mirroring the phases of the cell cycle and the noocytes' alteration of humanity into something new entirely.

Yet there is no salvation from this man-wrought apocalypse, no eleventh-hour rescue. If the first half of the book concerns Ulam playing god to save his creation, then the second concerns the consequences of that decision and the people trying to survive. Taking a multiple person point-of-view, Bear does a sterling job here putting across different people's experiences in this drastically altered environment all while slowly unfurling the truth behind the noocytes' actions.

This is a book of Big Ideas: biotechnology, nanotechnology, genetic memory, and a few others central to the plot that I won't spoil are explored and it's clear that Bear knows his stuff. The argument can be made that his characters get short thrift and are just there to explore these ideas but they're the ones who carry this story; the ones who have to adapt to a rapidly changing world they can no longer understand.

Needless to say that this book hasn't aged a bit - even as one of the first science fiction books with genetic engineering as a central concern and plot driver, it feels like it could have been written yesterday. If you like big ideas taken to some terrifying extremes, I can't recommend it enough.

Mockingbird

A haunting vision of the future. Source: Here

“I feel free and strong. If I were not a reader of books I could not feel this way. Whatever may happen to me, thank God that I can read, that I have truly touched the minds of other men.” 

Reading is one of those things for me that genuinely brings good into my life. Ever since I was a kid I loved getting myself lost in others' imaginations, whether that was just to have a good time or to debate the author's message. It's the closest thing to actually talking to the author themselves. So what happens when you encounter a book about reading and its meaning?

Enter Mockingbird. Written by Walter Tevis and published in 1980, the world detailed is a grim one. Set in the far future, humanity has achieved contentedness at a great price, perpetually dosed on narcotics and electronic bliss. Those who cannot persist immolate themselves to escape, the sopors making this process painless. There is no art, no literature, no love, no families, no children and no history, with not even a record of the years that have passed. Humanity is kept complacent by pithy slogans ("Don't ask, relax", "Quick sex is best") and an emphasis on privacy and inwardness, with the robot class that looks after them also falling apart. The robot in charge of it all, Spofforth, grows disillusioned with this task and wants to die, but is programmed to live.

A book this reminded me of is Fahrenheit 451, with both placing special emphasis on books and the significance of reading, with harsh penalties for those who refuse to tow the line. In Mockingbird society is slowly withering, humanity having handed over their lives to their creations without any resistance. Where in Fahrenheit 451 the authorities burn books to stop further reading, there is no need for that in Mockingbird since the love of reading itself has been lost.

“New York is nearly a grave. The Empire State Building is its gravestone.” 

There is hope for the future of humankind - our protagonist, university professor Paul has painstakingly taught himself to read from researching old silent movies and with his companion Mary Lou follows a journey of self-discovery. The narrative cycles from Spofforth to Paul to Mary Lou, the reader getting ample opportunity inside their heads as we explore this decaying world. Paul himself follows the most dynamic journey; teaching Mary to read, ending up in prison, escaping and even falling in with a Christian enclave not too shortly after. There's so much packed into 247 pages but it never feels like a chore - on the contrary I was surprised at the ease with which Tevis weaved his narrative.

Tevis really infuses this novel with a literary quality you don't see in much sci-fi - so so many memorable quotes peppered throughout:

"It all began, I suppose, with learning to build fires—to warm the cave and keep the predators out. And it ended with time-release Valium." 

• This forms the central crux of the book's Big Idea: that humankind's pursuit of a more comfortable existence did indeed lead to contentedness, perhaps at the cost of what helps make us human.

“The Age of Technology has rusted.” 

• What really makes Mockingbird stand out from other dystopias isn't its excess or gloom a la 1984 - it's the ease with which it came to be. One long sleepwalk and humans began to wither away.

“When literacy died, so had history.” 

• Tevis packs a hell of a punch, that can't be denied. 

"Only the mockingbird sings at the edge of the woods."

• Mockingbirds are known for mimicking other birds' calls. The unsubtle implication being that this life is only a hollow copy of what once was.

I could honestly talk about so much more with this book. It's left an indelible impression on me, and no doubt I'll return to it again. Please read this book - you won't regret it. Feels only fitting to cap this review off with a pertinent bit of T.S. Eliot:

"My life is light, waiting for the death wind,

Like a feather on the back of my hand."

Dangerous Visions

A hallmark of the New Wave movement. Source: Here

"What you hold in your hands is more than a book. If we are lucky, it is a revolution."

When Harlan Ellison began this sci-fi anthology with the above quote, I can't help but wonder if he knew an inkling of how seismic its impact would be. A collection of 33 short stories by some of the leading science fiction luminaries writing at the time as well as some relative newcomers - Philip K. Dick, Theodore Sturgeon, Robert Silverberg, Brian W. Aldiss, Samuel R. Delaney, and of course Harlan Ellison himself - this anthology is filled to the brim with accomplished writers at the peak of their abilities or soon to be ascendant.

Published in 1967 and edited together by American writer Harlan Ellison, the prime objective of this anthology was to bring to the forefront stories considered too dangerous, too risky and taboo for publication elsewhere. Dangerous Visions would form a cornerstone of the New Wave movement and was soon followed up in 1972 by an even larger sequel; Again, Dangerous Visions. Each story begins with an introduction by Ellison and an afterword by the author outlining their intent and some closing comments, padding the page count considerably but also adding some extra insight into the creation of each story which was an aspect of the book I enjoyed.

With the sheer glut of stories available it took some time to sift through and decide but there were a great number of gems in there:

• Evensong (Lester del Rey) - it does in seven pages what whole books often fail to do. Utterly arresting and compelling to the very end; just saying anything about the plot is a spoiler but what a way to start off the book!
• A Toy for Juliette (Robert Bloch) - a very dark and grim tale about a killer whose grandfather brings her victims from across time, with an unexpected sting in the tail to come.
• Faith of Our Fathers (Philip K. Dick) - my favorite in the collection, though I'm generally biased toward anything Dick. A strange meld of theology, Cold War politics and hallucinogenic drugs filled with quintessential Dick strangeness.
• Gonna Roll the Bones (Fritz Leiber) - a man plays craps with Death. Shades of the Seventh Seal there for me so if that doesn't sell you on it, I don't know what will.
• The Doll-House (James Cross) - a cautionary tale mixing ancient mythology with modern parable, where our protagonist receives a doll-house containing a small Greek oracle. 
• If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister? (Theodore Sturgeon) - a discomforting story that still packs a punch. Sturgeon knows how to write a good story.
• Judas (John Brunner) - my first taste of Brunner's writing and holy smokes he is good. Another zinger in this collection!
• Carcinoma Angels (Norman Spinrad) - an entertaining story with a stinger of an end.

For an anthology promising "dangerous visions" I couldn't shake the feeling that a lot of them weren't really particularly dangerous. Maybe it's the fact that these stories were published in 1968 and several decades' worth of new stories, new themes and new dangers just mean they don't feel quite as timely or as risky as they once did. Nevertheless these remains evocative enough for me to at least understand why this anthology is as revered as it is.

Another small criticism was the lack of diversity in the number of authors whose stories were published. For all the forward-thinking and progressiveness of these stories, a primarily white male author base I can't help but feel doesn't represent the full depth and breadth of what dangerous visions sci-fi can offer.

On the whole though, I really enjoyed reading Dangerous Visions. A vital cornerstone of the New Wave, it is a sampling of some of the finest work of the time. Worth it on the historical value alone.