The Book of Skulls

Immortality is at stake; but is the price too high? Source: Here

"Eternities must be balanced by extinctions."

I have a soft spot for quest narratives. They give us an easy journey to follow that parallels the characters' own internal evolution over the course of the book and rather neatly frames the course of events. Reading this particular journey gave me much to think about - between this and Dying Inside, I'm slowly gaining a taste for Silverberg's bibliography. (I also wasn't sure whether to place this book as sci-fi or not. Seemingly the only element that could qualify this book as science fiction is the idea of immortality and our characters' search of it - beyond that, this could have easily been marketed as more mainstream or even literary fiction)

The Book of Skulls is a 1971 Hugo Award nominee written by Robert Silverberg. It follows the journey of four college students, guided by a translation of an ancient manuscript known as the Book of Skulls, which sends them travelling deep into the Arizona desert to find the House of Skulls. Within this alleged monastery lives an order of monks capable of conferring immortality to those that complete their initiation rite. Immortality comes at a price; only two will be able to gain eternal life, and the other two must die - one must be murdered and the other must commit suicide of his own volition. 

Our journey is presented by four first-person narrators, the novel rotating between points-of-view to give each their time to shine, and it is great to see that each is clearly distinct from another. Not only that but this device allows us to learn about them gradually as well as seeing how each of them react to events unfolding. There is no unifying sense of morale keeping the group together - only morbid curiosity and perhaps the hint that this mad quest for immortality may not be fiction after all. What initially begins as a regular road trip soon becomes darker and more final in purpose, down to the inevitable conclusion.

Immortality is the central theme, the goal for our characters and the topic of debate. Can it be gained? Perhaps more importantly, if it exists should it be a goal worth seeking? The book constantly interrogates this notion, as well as whether it actually exists - we never get a definitive answer by the end on whether the House of Skulls and its promises of immortality are genuine or simply a fraud. Silverberg's own depth and breadth of knowledge shines through, with references to the legend of Glaukus the fisherman, the Uttarakuru and Ugaritic civilisations, famous explorer John Mandeville - it is very clear we are in the hands of someone who knows his stuff.

There were elements of the book I didn't quite enjoy. I fully understand that some books are very much products of their time but the misogyny and homophobia weren't exactly palatable. Female roles in the book are fleeting and scarcely sketched out with any dimension (though perhaps with so much of the book devoted to the main quartet that may be an inevitable consequence) and the main gay character is a lecherous and downright unlikable protagonist - hardly a plus for positive representation.

Yet nevertheless I couldn't help but enjoy the book. Silverberg is downright masterful with his prose and each sentence is a treat to read. There's just this indescribable quality I can't quite put my pulse on, and like with Dying Inside the prose is poetic yet functional without needless verbiage. Once the plot gets into the monastery we reach the inevitable conclusion of these characters' journeys, learning more about just what type of person they are and how committed they are to this quest and I simply could not stop reading until I had found out their end. I had a devil of a time reading this book, and I look forward to revisiting it further down the line and being absorbed by Silverberg's prose.

More Than Human

An astonishing work of science-fiction. Source: Here

“Love’s a different sort of thing, hot enough to make you flow into something, interflow, cool and anneal and be a weld stronger than what you started with.” 

There are certain books that truly stand the test of time, that not only seem not to age with the passing of years but still remain just as compelling as they were upon their original publication. So stands More Than Human as a titan of not just science fiction, but good fiction.

More Than Human was published in 1953 as a revised and expanded version of the previously published novella Baby is Three, adjacent to two new sections written for the novel ("The Fabulous Idiot" and "Morality"). The story concerns a group of individuals and outcasts from society who possess extraordinary abilities and come together to form a being greater than the sum of its parts; "Homo gestalt", the next stage of human evolution. They include:

• Lone - the "Idiot", a  25 year old man with the telepathic ability to make people do what he wants them to. He is the "head" of the gestalt, directing the whole collective.
• Janie - an eight-year old with the powers of telepathy and telekinesis. She is the "body" of the gestalt, linking the disparate pieces together and ensuring communication is fluid.
• Bonnie and Beanie - two black twins who are able to teleport. They form the "hands" of the gestalt, able to go anywhere they are directed.
• Baby - a strange malformed infant who acts as a supercomputer, his advanced mental capacity allowing him to solve any problem put to him.

They form the original gestalt in Part 1 ("The Fabulous Idiot"). Gerry Thompson, a street urchin with sociopathic tendencies becomes the new "head" of the gestalt from Part 2 onwards, while Hip Barrows is the man who journeys from nearly dying in prison to giving the gestalt a new lease of life. Such a colourful and varied cast of characters kept me engaged and willing to read on, and it was particularly refreshing to see minority and female characters play such an active role in events for a book written in 1953.

If there is any detail that makes this book stand out to me even now, it has to be the prose. Sturgeon's writing is immediately electric and memorable:

"It was spring, the part of spring where the bursting is done, the held-in pressures of desiccated sap-veins and gum-sealed buds are gone, and all the world’s in a rush to be beautiful."

"The idiot lived in a black and gray world, punctuated by the white lightning of hunger and the

nickering of fear. His clothes were old and many-windowed. "

There is a lyricism to the writing that is seldom seen in S.F., and the fact that the book hasn't aged a day since its publication is a testament to the strength of Sturgeon's writing. More Than Human explores question of love, isolation, being part of a greater whole, individual identity and how best fit into and serve society - there are no easy answers given but the ending should leave readers with plenty to mull over.

Yeah, the process of evolution as depicted in the novel is hardly accurate, but to nitpick it is to miss the point of the book entirely. Sturgeon posits what might happen should evolution advance mental faculties - it is notable that our main characters' powers are all psionic in some form or other - and the use of a "soft" science like psychology doesn't make the book any less scientific. Science fiction has always examined how humanity and the definition of humanity might change with the passing of time or with the introduction of new scientific advances. Homo gestalt may indeed be more than human but does that mean it is fully divorced from its roots? Perhaps not. 

Unquenchable Fire

One of the strangest SF works I've read. Source: Here

“By its own reality, ecstasy makes people see that suffering is real. And without purpose. Ecstasy is a light that illuminates pain.”

This is a strange book, even for me. What I find so perplexing is just how to classify it, not fitting so neatly into either science fiction or fantasy, or even a blend of both. Yet I can't deny it left an impression with just how different it was from my conventional fare.

Usually science fiction deals with future worlds radically changed by science, future technologies plausible or fantastical and the reaction of human beings to the changes in and facilitated by science and technology. The question is: how do you categorise a book where science has been spurned?

Unquenchable Fire was first published in 1988 by Rachel Pollack. Set in a not-too distant future America, the forces of science and technology have been overthrown and replaced by spiritualism and magic. Many decades ago a group called the Founders led this revolution, establishing the system of magic and storytelling that by the book's time has become commonplace, typified by their Pictures - a series of sacred stories - and their respective meanings. Magic is no longer the domain of select individuals but instead employed regularly by government bodies and agencies (for example, the existence of an agency that interprets dreams for individuals).

Spiritual rites and sacrifices loom over every aspect of this world, particularly when concerning the Tellers - magical storytellers who hold the power to transport listeners inside the Pictures they recite. Yet many years after the Founders' advances, there is a sense that these rituals are no longer conducted out of a sense of true veneration, but merely as grudging obligation and as a part of keeping up appearances. Magic is all-too commonplace, rendered mundane by a choking bureaucracy. Even the Tellers themselves appear to be going through the motions.

The story is centered around Jennifer Mazdan, an employee of the Energy Board in Poughkeepsie, New York who falls asleep on the same day as a key recital from a Teller. She awakes from this sleep pregnant with a new Messiah destined to finish the Revolution that the Founders started. In the hands of a less adept writer it brings to mind the weary trope of the mystical pregnancy, that robs a female character of any sort of agency over their predicament for the sake of plot but I'm happy to report that this isn't the case here. The novel spends much time with Mazdan and explores her reaction and inner psychology to a destiny forced on her against her will; it's unafraid to refer to what happened as a violation of her.

Try as she might, it's very difficult to go against the will of the higher power who ordained you with this destiny. When she tried to enter an abortion clinic to terminate the pregnancy, trees sprout up in front of her to bar her entry. I didn't interpret this scene as being anti-abortion or emblematic of some wider worldview of the author, but rather a repetition of my earlier sentiment - what can you do when your own desires and wishes clash against those of a supreme deity with its own plans in store for individuals? It's not an easy question to answer, if it can be answered at all.

One really key theme running through the book whose exploration I enjoyed was the clash between true spirituality and those who only pretend to practice it. In the time of the book's narrative, there is a sense that the teachings of the Founders are taken for granted, that rather than people truly engaging in religious practice they only participate out of a sense of routine or to keep up appearances. Throughout the book, Mazdan clashes with her neighbours over being seen to "abandon" the sacred rituals and ceremonies - the irony being that they're so concerned over seeming devout and faithful that they completely miss the gestating Messiah inside Mazdan!

An aspect which I initially found disorienting was the presence of miracles made mundane. By their very nature, miracles are divine acts overriding natural cause and effect so of course they're not going to make sense. Even with the magic being made everyday it's no less unnerving, particularly in one scene with a Maligant One - a type of evil spirit that can possess hosts - that still brings me shivers.

The key theme that really stuck with me was the idea of storytelling; namely what the purpose of story is and how it can change us. Stories are used as devices to entertain and delight but they can also warn - one of the central Pictures discovered by one of the Founders is termed The Place Inside, discontinued for public rituals because of the negative effects it had on audiences with its images of death and destruction. Yet it serves as an example that stories can be used to confront hard truths and change our behaviours for the better, and in fact The Place Inside links to Mazdan's dream and the destiny of her child to ultimately help humanity rekindle a true spiritual connection.

It's weighty stuff, and it almost feels like the book could have used some more pages to further explore and clarify these themes. There were sections of the book devoted to myth-telling that I for the life of me couldn't fully wrap my head around, though whether that was an intentional result or simply me being unfamiliar with the context behind them I don't know. On the whole though I really enjoyed reading this book, just for it being so different and diverse from the science fiction I traditionally read. It's a book anyone interested in the interplay between faith and individuals would rightfully enjoy.

Star Maker

This book towers over sci-fi like a looming giant. Source: Here

"It is better to be destroyed than to triumph in slaying the spirit. Such as it is, the spirit that we have achieved is fair; and it is indestructibly woven into the tissue of the cosmos. We die praising the universe in which at least such an achievement as ours can be. We die knowing that the promise of further glory outlives us in other galaxies. We die praising the Star Maker, the Star Destroyer."

In his earlier book Last and First Men, Olaf Stapledon created a billions-year long history of the human race and its future. Written in 1937, Star Maker makes the former a mere footnote in its examination of the history of the entire universe, and those beyond. The sheer scale of this enterprise is so intense as to be nearly paralysing.

The story begins with a nameless narrator sitting on a hill at night, looking up at the stars. Suddenly, he is seized by an unknown presence and is sent soaring away from planet Earth. Journeying across space and time he meets various aliens who join him on this strange journey, coalescing into a super-being observing the future history of this universe, the rise and fall of various alien societies, their conglomeration into a massive pan-galactic hive mind, all culminating in a meeting with the Star Maker - the supreme being behind the creation of this universe and many more.

To call this book a novel, or to judge it as a conventional novel is a little tricky. There is no plot, no developed characters;the former replaced by the passing of time on a cosmic level and the latter changing over time as our narrator travels with different alien beings and becoming greater than the sum of this collective. The argument could be made that keeping the characters as little more than a point of view through which to examine the cosmos can't keep a person invested, and yet it does. The lack of a dramatic arc doesn't hinder the novel in any way from its purpose - an examination of the Universe and the ultimate meaning of our existence.

It's also easy to see the seeds of ideas that writers like Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Baxter and Iain M. Banks would be writing about in their careers - Dyson spheres, hive minds, planet-sized ships, even a glimmer of virtual reality! Stapledon's imagination is in full bloom here, and the imagery of these concepts is stunning. The ending is in its own way heartbreaking, with the galactic hive mind meeting the eponymous Star Maker and finding out its universe, for all the struggles and trials it's witnessed, is only one imperfect copy, a rough draft in the Maker's own quest toward some incomprehensible goal. This book was never going to end with a definitive answer, and neither should it - it may be that contemplation is the intended purpose. 

Stapledon's background in philosophy shines through as well; even with the sketches of alien societies you always see the struggle between digression into conflict and the universal search for truth. A case could be made that his model of the Star Maker is built off of philosopher Baruch Spinoza's model of God - that He is not built like man with his own body and mind but rather that he is the fundamental substance forming the basis of the universe and that all other entities flow from and are parts of. To me that makes the central struggle of Star Maker a universal one - the search for knowledge and purpose, of individuals attempting to understand that which is infinitely, almost incomprehensibly greater than themselves even when rational explanations are hard to find.

If I have any criticisms, they really only remain nitpicks since they didn't adversely affect my experience with this book - a lot of Stapledon's quasi-religious articulations are clearly shaped from a Christian viewpoint though there is mention of East Asian philosophy. Gender gets short thrift also, with the alien species referred to as "Men" and any exploration of this concept is limited to procreation - though for a book written in 1937 perhaps this is more to do with the sensibilities of the time rather than any bias of the author, especially considering his musings in other works such as Odd John (review coming soon!).

It would be remiss, perhaps even impossible to talk about Star Maker without referring to Last and First Men. Both works concern themselves on a narrative level with a narrator learning about the future development of humanity as well as humanity itself; its trials and tribulations, its self-destructive tendencies and on a larger scale the cyclical nature of history, each civilisation rising and falling and hoping its inheritors can rise to greater heights. Star Maker, in its depictions of alien nations, draws its own parallels to the industrial powers of Stapledon's time, using them to rebuke the evils of colonialism, industrialism and unchecked media. He infuses even the most alien societies with an underlying humanity, using them as mirrors to his own time to examine early 20th century events with the unceasing march toward the future - and 80+ years since his time, both LAFM and SM remain more potent than ever.

If you're expecting a conventional narrative then this book will inevitably be disappointing. Star Maker stands as a giant of S.F., never once giving easy answers but no doubt cultivating in readers' minds arguments that will rage on for quite some time. 

Last and First Men

A vision of future humankind's lives.  Source: Here 

“We all desire the future to turn out more happily than I have figured it. In particular we desire our present civilization to advance steadily toward some kind of Utopia. The thought that it may decay and collapse, and that all its spiritual treasure may be lost irrevocably, is repugnant to us. Yet this must be faced as at least a possibility.” 

Future histories are settings ripe for exploration. Whether that be as a backdrop to your story or to act as a form of oracle and try to chart the way human society might go, there's something about the concept that lets the imagination loose. 

Not so loose as to completely shirk convention, mind you. Even the strangest sci-fi books also have some basic components we all take for granted - a story, a cast of characters, clearly delineated acts and so forth. So what happens when you get a book that doesn't have those? Enter Last and First Men. Written by Olaf Stapledon in 1930, it covers a fictional history of humankind from the then-present day to 2+ billion years in the future, covering a multitude of different types of humans and their subsequent rise and fall.

Beginning from the 20th Century (which isn't even a quarter of this book) Stapledon sets out on a quest whose scale has yet to be replicated. Setting out from the First Men, we see humankind's evolution take very strange paths indeed as they set out across the Solar System, beset by crisis upon crisis only to emerge stronger than ever until the journey concludes at the Eighteenth Men - the Last Men, one of which turns out to have been our narrator dictating back this future history. From the skies of Venus to the seas of Neptune, there is plenty of diverse setting to enjoy (though perhaps not as cosmic as modern readers are used to).

Any of the individual races of man covered could very easily have gotten their own book but each play their own part in humankind's continued rise and fall over a span of billions of years (with apparent influence from the Hegelian Dialectic), Stapledon briefly pausing at each to sketch out general trends and key events. Along the journey we meet giant vat brains, flying hominids, telepathically linked cyclopean giants - imagination is not in short supply here. A very key theme is the cyclical nature of human history:

"...all the main phases of man's life on earth were many times repeated on Venus with characteristic differences. Theocratic empires; free and intellectualistic island cities; insecure overlordship of feudal archipelagos; rivalries of high priest and emperor; religious feuds over the interpretation of sacred scriptures; recurrent fluctuations of thought from naïve animism, through polytheism, conflicting monotheisms, and all the desperate "isms" by which mind seeks to blur the severe outline of truth; recurrent fashions of comfort-seeking fantasy and cold intelligence; social disorders through the misuse of volcanic or wind power in industry; business empires and pseudo-communistic empires-- all these forms flitted over the changing substance of mankind again and again, as in an enduring hearth fire there appear and vanish the infinitely diverse forms of flame and smoke."

In many ways, Stapledon was ahead of his time when it came to the themes in his books, tackling ideas on the risks of genetic engineering, terraforming, resource scarcity, aliens that are actually alien, but it's that repeated rise and decline of humanity which dominates the book. If you approach Last and First Men expecting a conventional narrative you will be disappointed, with characters replaced by the different forms of human and the plot being the endless march of Time, either grinding humans into dust or uplifting them to heights never before reached.

Yet even in spite of the immensity of time spanned the sheer thought that went into this tale can easily be seen. Stapledon doesn't place humanity at the centre of the universe, but they're not wholly insignificant either. He writes with a detached, comforting voice noting the successes and failures, the quests and roadblocks that future humanities face and how small it seems with the passage of years - though no less significant.

Last and First Men functions as a philosophical treatise seeking to explore and perhaps even answer questions like the nature of humanity and the true meaning of life. The prose can be a bit dry but to the avid S.F. reader this is an unmissable read. Only his own Star Maker exceeds this book in sheer scale. If this First Man began this review, let the Last Man's words conclude it:


"Great are the stars, and man is of no account to them. But man is a fair spirit, whom a star conceived and a star kills. He is greater than those bright blind companies. For though in them there is incalculable potentiality, in him there is achievement, small, but actual. Too soon, seemingly, he comes to his end. But when he is done he will not be nothing, not as though he had never been; for he is eternally a beauty in the eternal form of things."

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."