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.

Gateway

A suspense-filled novel. Source: Here

“They were two lovely choices. One of them meant giving up every chance of a decent life forever...and the other one scared me out of my mind.” 

Where to start with this book? One of the very few joint Hugo/Nebula award winners, and rightly deserved too.

Published in 1977 and written by Frederik Pohl, Gateway is set in a far-flung future in a overpopulated solar system. Earth is wracked by economic inequality and resource scarcity, with the rich able to access the latest medical technology and the poor with little option but to farm kelp or mine shale to grow the slimy bacteria that makes up the majority of these people's food. In the Solar System, humanity has discovered an asteroid hollowed out to form an alien space station with functioning ships within.

There are just a few small problems. We don't know how the ships work; what the different controls do or indicate; what fuel the ships run on; how much fuel the ships have; the destinations of the ships and whether they're still safe to travel to. People don't know how to reprogram the ships' courses, or whether they'll have enough food for the return journey - but the prospect of striking it rich with the discovery of new alien wares makes the prospect all too appealing. What Pohl does well here is dropping in strange new technology but visualising it in broad strokes rather than going into detail and therefore ruining the mystery.  

Quite frankly, we don't even know how safe anything is, and that works in full favour of the book. Keeping so much under wraps, keeping this many blanks in our knowledge really adds to the aura of mystery surrounding every facet of the novel, and allows the reader to fill in the blanks themselves. We don't even see the aliens behind all this! What I found really effective was how nonchalant Pohl made the prospect of dying out in space seem - to our protagonists and everyone they know, it's simply a hazard of the book. The very premise itself, the fact that the possibility of dying horribly far away from Earth is far more preferable to staying there is enough to drive home how dark this narrative can get.

As for the protagonist, Robinette Broadhead, I found him flawed. Not as in executed badly but simply a flawed human being with his own neuroses and fears which I really appreciated, even if I didn't particularly like him very much. The main thrust of the story alternates between Broadhead's own experiences on Gateway and his sessions with A.I. psychiatrist Sigfrid (also my favorite character), slowly unfurling just what happened that traumatised Broadhead so much. We know that something tragic happened but the journey we take to get there is one I'd travel again, just to fully immerse myself in this strange world once more.

On the whole I found myself supremely satisfied with this book. As the first of Pohl's books I've heard it's a more than welcome introduction to his body of work, with an engaging plot, great well-rounded characters (it was especially nice to read older science fiction where female characters were more than just cardboard cutouts and were given roles that weren't subservient to men) and a killer premise that still rings with me now.

The Stars My Destination

The Count of Monte Cristo - in space! Source: Here

“Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation.
Deep space is my dwelling place,
The stars my destination.” 

What I like the most about this book was just how quick a read it was. The day I bought this, I sat down with it and by the time the afternoon was nearing dark I was finished. It is a testament to the writing of this book that I didn't notice the time fly by...

Written by Alfred Bester in 1956 (though originally serialised in four parts and condensed into this one novel), The Stars My Destination (TSMD) is a classic of the 1950s. Set in the 25th century, this future revolves around the idea of "jaunting", whereby individuals can teleport vast distances in the blink of an eye. Such an advance has completely upended the societal and economic order, seen with the Inner Planets and Outer Satellites at war with one another; and while all this is happening, protagonist Gully Foyle is adrift in space upon the wreck of the spaceship Nomad, biding his time until rescue arrives - and subsequently passes him by. This slight sees him consumed by the hunger for revenge, and the rest of the book follows his transformation into the noble Geoffrey Fourmyle, blending into the upper echelons of society while still searching for the person who left him for dead.

Such a narrative inevitably draws comparisons to The Count of Monte Cristo - a protagonist thought dead by wider society, returns a number of years after completely reinvented but kept true by the thought of vengeance, and on the surface they appear to share that central narrative (though TSMD is substantially shorter). I would argue that TSMD stands alone as its own thrilling yarn; describing a future where people can travel at the speed of thought and where revenge can be carried out instantly, it only makes sense Gully Foyle arrives at his destination faster than Edmond Dantes.

• The Presteign: the head of the wealthy Presteign clan and leader of a multinational megacorporation.
• Olivia Presteign: albino daughter of Presteign who sees the world along the infra-red and electromagnetic spectrums.
• Saul Dagenham: head of a private agency and nuclear scientist who was rendered radioactive in an accident - cannot remain in the same room as anyone else for an hour without killing them.
• Jisbella McQueen: criminal miscreant who guides Gully Foyle on his journey of vengeance.

Such an astounding imagination with more than enough ideas to match our colourful settings and characters: cybernetic implants, the aforementioned "jaunting" and its effects on future society, corporations as powerful as governments, shades of cyberpunk can be seen long before Gibson and Sterling and their contemporaries!

Gully Foyle is not a sympathetic character, nor is he intended to be. What I found especially masterful was how Bester turned this psychopathic, almost remorseless individual with nothing but revenge on his mind and turned him into mankind's saviour:

“You pigs, you. You rut like pigs, is all. You got the most in you, and you use the least. You hear me, you? Got a million in you and spend pennies. Got a genius in you and think crazies. Got a heart in you and feel empties. All a you. Every you...'

[...]

Take a war to make you spend. Take a jam to make you think. Take a challenge to make you great. Rest of the time you sit around lazy, you. Pigs, you! All right, God damn you! I challenge you, me. Die or live and be great. Blow yourselves to Christ gone or come and find me, Gully Foyle, and I make you men. I make you great. I give you the stars.”

I absolutely could not put down this book, and when I did I couldn't help but feel a twinge of regret when leaving this universe, this vivid kaleidoscope of fresh ideas and characters ripped straight from a comic book (fitting, given Bester's background writing in comics). I cannot recommend this book enough.

The Left Hand of Darkness

A true classic of science fiction. Source: Here

“Light is the left hand of darkness
and darkness the right hand of light.
Two are one, life and death, lying
together like lovers in kemmer,
like hands joined together,
like the end and the way.”

Finally, a female author to break up the monotony! And who better to start with than Ursula Le Guin and her most famous work?

The Left Hand of Darkness is a science-fiction novel published in 1969 by Ursula K. Le Guin and is part of her Hainish Cycle series. In this universe humanity originated not on Earth but on the planet Hain, expanding outward and colonizing neighbouring planetary systems. For unknown reasons, these planets lost contact and in the present the Hainish are once again attempting to form a galactic civilisation.

Our story plays out on the planet Winter (known as "Gethen" in the native people's tongue, and referred to as such because it is always cold) where galactic envoy Genly Ai has been sent to persuade Gethen to join the Ekumen - this is complicated by the fact that Gethen is divided into two nations, Karhide and Orgoreyn,who do NOT get on very amicably. The people of Gethen are an androgynous, only adopting male or female sexual attributes once a month during a period referred to as kemmer,  and with no inclination toward either sex.

The significance of this book cannot be understated. Science-fiction for a large part of the 20th century has predominantly been a boys' club, with female and minority authors overlooked or lucky enough to get anything published to anywhere near the same degree as their male or white counterparts. When The Left Hand of Darkness was published in 1969, it arrived in the midst of two significant movements:

• In the wider world second-wave feminism was in full swing, and contrary to its predecessors this focused on gaining equality with men in social and political spheres and gaining greater legal rights for women.
• The New Wave was still in force in science fiction, marking a shift toward more experimental forms of writing and moving away from science fiction focusing on the hard sciences and toward the social sciences.

While Le Guin certainly wasn't the first female writer working in science-fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness certainly helped break down the barriers preventing women from writing more and went on to meet significant critical acclaim, winning both the Hugo and Nebula awards - the big two awards a sci-fi book can hope to attain.

What I really enjoyed about this book was almost the anthropological approach that Le Guin took in writing this story. Her own father, Alfred Louis Kroeber, was an anthropologist, and you can see how this influence permeates the book - what with the main protagonist's central struggle focusing on successful integration and coming to grips with an alien society. We have chapters fleshing out the Gethenian race which focus on their origins, religion, and even local myths, just little features I thought helped flesh out these strange beings more than we're used to in science fiction.

Another aspect I enjoyed was seeing how Genly grappled with the concept of "the Other" all throughout. Having come from Earth, with its own gender roles and delineations, to then be thrust into Gethenian society without the same notions of gender throws him for a spin. This difference makes relating to the Gethen a great difficulty for Genly, and even his assignation of value to their perceived gendered traits (e.g. equating femininity to weakness) doesn't help matters. His alien nature prevents him from fully understanding how Gethenians and their society work.

Easily my favorite part is the character of Estraven. Not just as the mentor guiding Genly - and by extension the reader - through this frosty alien world but as a person trying to do the right thing. Even when exiled and disgraced, he still risks his life for Genly, to the extent of helping take him across a glacier in order to return to civilisation. Indeed, both Estraven and Genly appear symbolic of the book's thematic core; learning from and aiding one another regardless of it the gap between us is unbridgeable.

The gender aspect of the book I thought could have been executed better. Le Guin writes the Gethenians almost solely using male pronouns ("fathers, sons, brothers") when we have a multitude of gender neutral pronouns ("parents/guardians, children, siblings") that could have been more than acceptable. For the time it was published, the fact that there was an effort to make such different notions of gender a central part of your narrative in my eyes should be commended.

All in all, I really enjoyed this thought-provoking book. It left me with so much to mull over and I'm certain I'll come to revisit it soon enough. I think this end quote really sums up the essence of what Le Guin was aiming for here; that even when there gaps between you and "the Other" that cannot be overcome, that shouldn't stop us from attempting to try:

“And I saw then again, and for good, what I had always been afraid to see, and had pretended not to see in him: that he was a woman as well as a man. Any need to explain the sources of that fear vanished with that fear; what I was left with was, at last, acceptance of him as he was. Until then I had rejected him, refused him his own reality.”

A Canticle for Leibowitz

A post-apocalyptic book for the ages. Source: Here

“Listen, are we helpless? Are we doomed to do it again and again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise and fall? Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Carthage, Rome, the Empires of Charlemagne and the Turk: Ground to dust and plowed with salt. Spain, France, Britain, America—burned into the oblivion of the centuries. And again and again and again. Are we doomed to it, Lord, chained to the pendulum of our own mad clockwork, helpless to halt its swing? This time, it will swing us clean to oblivion.” 

This is easily the bleakest book I have read. After finishing it I just put it down and let what I'd read wash over me like a tidal wave - not something to pick up if you've had a bad day, but still a very rewarding experience.

Written by Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz was first published in 1960 and won the 1961 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. The book's narrative revolves around the Roman Catholic monastery of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz, a monastic order founded by a Jewish engineer after a nuclear apocalypse (referred to as the Flame Deluge) destroyed 20th century civilisation. As if this wasn't enough, mass book-burning soon followed in an event known as the Simplification, a reactionary response against the intellectuals thought responsible for the apocalypse. The Order found itself with a pressing objective: to preserve whatever scraps of knowledge remain of the time before the bombs fell and safeguard them for future generations.

The book itself is structured into three parts: Fiat Homo (Let There Be Man), Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light) and Fiat Voluntas Tua (Let Thy Will Be Done), each separated by periods of roughly six centuries each. Starting in the 26th century, the first section drops us in an irradiated American Southwest, with the Albertian Order sending out "book-leggers" to collect whatever knowledge (referred to as "memorabilia") all while avoiding being killed by the roving bands of marauders that patrol the desert.

We are then taken 600 years forward into the 32nd century, where humanity has risen somewhat from its post-apocalyptic slump and has developed crude nation-states, and is once again gearing to go to war. Here, the Church faces rising tensions with resurgent secular institutions over not only who should safeguard knowledge but also who gets to control and use it. The final section skips forward again 600 years, to a time when humanity has exceeded the technological peaks of centuries past and has entered a Golden Age - save for the looming threat of a second nuclear war.

Using this structure Miller emphasises the theme of cyclical history throughout the three sections, suggesting that time follows the same cycles of rise and fall no matter how many years pass, the implication being that humanity will stumble at the same pitfalls their Pre-Deluge ancestors fell to. You can see this reflected in in each section:

• Fiat Homo is a new Dark Age, a period overseeing massive regression from an earlier era of modernity and civility and instead breeding barbarism and anti-intellectualism. Characterised by a scarcity of knowledge and mass ignorance, only a select few hold access to the past's secrets, and fewer still can decipher them.
• Fiat Lux reflects the Renaissance that followed, with humanity beginning to innovate and grow increasingly complex societal structures. Knowledge is not only preserved but actively researched as people seek to understand how the world works. This in turn leads to tension between the new researchers and the static institutions of an earlier time.
• Fiat Voluntas Tua sees humanity enter modernity once again, technology having massively improved people's standards of living to a level never seen before. However, science has not only uplifted humanity but also given it the power to destroy itself.

History repeats itself once more even if the individual circumstances differ. Miller also stresses the intertwined themes of science and religion throughout and how they can combat humanity's baser instincts, but suggests that neither on its own is enough to oppose those violent aspects. Science without a conscience leads to its fruits being used to destroy while the institutions of religion, while enduring, remain too static to adapt to the changing times and so find themselves outmanoeuvred by ever-shifting forces seeking to use knowledge for their own ends. In that respect, A Canticle for Leibowitz stands in contrast to mainstream science fiction where technology is depicted as an inherently good tool that will change humanity for the better or save it from calamity - what if it doesn't solve our problems? What if it only becomes another tool to destroy ourselves with?

What I also really enjoyed about the novel was Miller's reticence in giving easy answers. His characters aren't painted in shades of black and white and their arguments are given equal time as Miller challenges us to see these issues from different angles. There's a wonderful section in Fiat Voluntas Tua concerning an abbot and a doctor fiercely debating the ethics of euthanasia in the case of a mother and her child suffering from severe radiation burns; the doctor suggesting that assisted suicide is the most humane option and the abbot retorting that this equates to "state-sponsored suicide" (two key facts come to mind: suicide is considered a sin in Catholic scriptures and doctors take oaths to "do no harm". Interpret those how you will). There are no easy answers here, and while it's tempting to say that it was easier to leave them answered I do believe that Miller wanted his audience to truly grapple with these and have them seek the answers themselves.

It's not hard to see how the author's own influences have shaped this novel. Miller was one of the American airmen who took part in the controversial bombing of the abbey at Monte Cassino during World War 2, a monastery that at one time held 40,000 manuscripts, some from famous writers of antiquity such as Tacitus, Cicero and Ovid. Published within living memory of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, A Canticle for Leibowitz is a shining example of the post-nuclear holocaust genre, a marked contrast to the view that atomic power would bring light and a new age for all.

You'd expect a work so unrelentingly bleak and fatalistic about human nature to be written in an incredibly pessimistic manner, yet it is to Miller's credit that this is not the case. The prose, in contrast to the material it covers, is light and easy to follow and carries an undertone of hope, particularly in the final few scenes of the book. Humanity may bring about its own doom time and time again, but there remains the faint hope that someone else will continue the endless quest of preserving and restoring the past.

It is a sobering read, but also one that is very rewarding. For a book written in 1960 it still holds up remarkably well, and its questions on science and technology remain pertinent today. A Canticle For Leibowitz is not a work that leaves your mind quickly, and it is a good thing it doesn't.

Lord of Light

Say what you want about the 60s but their covers were something else... Source: Here

"His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god, but then he never claimed not to be a god."

Lord of Light was one of the first pieces of New Wave* science fiction I read. Immediately from the first page, I had a sneaking suspicion this wasn't going to be your typical sci-fi romp in outer space - and thank the stars it wasn't!

Written in 1967 by Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light is a science-fantasy novel set in the distant future, on an alien planet colonised by settlers from a bygone Earth (referred to as "vanished Urath"). In order to survive in this strange world, the crew used bioengineering and advanced technology to grant themselves great psionic and physical power which essentially raised them to the level of gods. However, the crew would go on to take the names and powers of various Hindu deities and set themselves up as a divine ruling class over the many generations of colonists and their descendants, maintaining a stranglehold on any technological advancement so as to avoid their power being weakened. The clincher is that these gods hold control of a technology that allows for mind transfer into a new body - essentially holding a monopoly on who is allowed to reincarnate, and into what form. Shades of Clarke's Third Law come to mind...

One of their number, Mahasamatman (or just Sam), chooses to rebel against the gods and instead attempts to make this technology available to all - as a result he spends countless years revolting against the gods, amassing allies, striking when he can across multiple lives, until his capture and and his soul's banishment to the firmament above. 

The book itself jumps from present to past and back again, detailing Sam's rise and rebellion, the allies and enemies he meets, to his exile and subsequent return. What initially caught my attention about this book was the deliberate use of an Eastern setting and mythologies not only in the worldbuilding but also in the story itself - certainly that choice initially made Lord of Light stand out from the very Eurocentric science fiction and fantasy landscape. Zelazny's inclusion of Hinduism and Buddhism never smacks of Orientalism** and if anything, just adds to the unique character of the book.

It is ponderous and wry all at the same time with its own unique mix of science, political intrigue, mysticism, religion and mythology. Sam could very easily retire away from the world by the second chapter once he gains the means to keep himself and his friends going for perpetuity and yet instead he persists in overthrowing the gods on behalf of the mortals they subjugate. One of my favorite moments in the book comes when Sam is possessed by one of the demonic inhabitants of this planet and forced to watch as his body carries out atrocity after atrocity - and he is courageous enough to sad that yes, a sliver of him enjoyed what was happening. That in my eyes immediately marks Sam differently from the myriad of Chosen One protagonists all too common in the genre.

One could argue the "rising up against an oppressive upper class" storyline has been played out so many times so as to lose all intrigue - in this instance I feel the unique settling and mythologies drawn from to create this world offset that. Even with his use of Eastern faiths, I feel Zelazny's point was to show how religion can be used as a mechanism to restrain a populace rather than any specific criticism on the faiths themselves.

Lord of Light is a spellbinding book well worth an afternoon's read. Equal parts thoughtful and amusing, it is a book bound to keep you entertained.

*New Wave - a literary movement in sci-fi lasting from the 60s to late 70s, characterised by a focus on the "softer" sciences as opposed to "hard" science, a high degree of experimental content/prose and a more literary approach to writing; in essence a break from the prior traditions of pulp sf and their emphasis on scientific accuracy/prediction.

**Orientalism - a general patronising attitude toward Middle Eastern, Asian and North African societies, carrying the implication that Western society is inherently more rational and therefore superior.