So What Are you Reading?: Generations

[Greg Cox]

Finished The Martians. A fascinating look at both turn-of-the-century America and the whole Martian "canal" theory, which sucked in even such sober papers as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, both of whom ran front page stories trumpeting the "canals" as proof that intelligent beings lived on Mars.

Percival Lowell is the (tragic) main character, but the likes of Tesla, J. P. Morgan, Alexander Graham Bell, Teddy Roosevelt, H. G. Wells, and even Emily Dickinson figure into the narrative.

 

[BoldlyGoingNowhere]

No, it was interesting. It's a trip down memory lane, since I read all those growing up, which was longer ago than I like to think about. It's interesting to see Clarke's writing described in utopian terms so similar to Gene Roddenberry's approach to TNG -- competence porn about smart, well-adjusted, ethically mature characters solving problems not resulting from their personal failings. I guess it accounts for why I was a big fan of both Clarke and Star Trek. Although I think I sort of outgrew Clarke after a while, finding a lot of his books rather basic, though there are still some I enjoy like Childhood's End and Rendezvous with Rama.

Hey Christopher, thanks for the response. I guess you can call it competence porn; that's a funny and accurate way of putting it. What do you mean by basic? I do wonder if Clarke began collaborations with other writers later in his career because he was second-guessing his own characters. Maybe he thought cerebral, technically accomplished people were sounding too flat. It's true there's no real development for them, and it all hinges on technical problems, and its implications on a larger level, while characters remain mostly untouched for the most part. But I don't know if that's the part you consider basic.

 

[Christopher]

What do you mean by basic?

Hard to say -- it's been a long time. They just didn't engage me as much. I recently reread one of his later ones, The Songs of Distant Earth, which I remembered liking when I first read it decades ago, but this time I found it rather superficial and plotless, mainly an exercise in worldbuilding.

 

[bdub76]

Stumbled upon Manacled (dark Harry Potter FanFic):

Manacled

Is Dramione my new personality?

yhtrtn.substack.com

Which appears to have been rewritten into: Alchemised

Which is on sale today for $1.99.

No idea if the above is good. Both are nearly 400k words long. That's a huge commitment.

Has anyone here read either?

 

[Greg Cox]

Hard to say -- it's been a long time. They just didn't engage me as much. I recently reread one of his later ones, The Songs of Distant Earth, which I remembered liking when I first read it decades ago, but this time I found it rather superficial and plotless, mainly an exercise in worldbuilding.

This happens. I recently had occasion to reread a book I loved when I was twelve: Cold War in a Country Garden by Lindsay Gutteridge, a sci-fi adventure novel about miniaturised British secret agents trying to survive in, well, an English country garden. Lots of battles against giant insects and Russian spies, as well as plenty of Swiss Family Robinson-type ingenuity and engineering.

Like I said, I remembered it fondly, but rereading it as a adult I was frustrated by just how flat, stoic, and unemotional the characters were. Lots of competence porn and stiff-upper-lip British reserve; even when a fellow agent gets eaten by an ant or whatever, nobody gets too distraught about it. "Damn shame what happened to Jenkins. Anyway . . . . "

Unlike The Incredible Shrinking Man by Matheson, there's no angst, no existential dread, no drama or heated emotion. Just boy's adventure stuff, peopled by smart, resourceful heroes who barely seemed to have any interior life at all, let alone libidos. Heck, even when (surprise!) they encounter a couple of miniaturised women, nobody seems too excited by this. It's kinda implied that, sure, the hero and the heroine are going to pair off eventually, but this is mentioned rather matter-of-factly in just a few lines near the end of the book. Before that, there's not a hint of sexual tension or jealousy. Or much in the way of characterization, period.

So, yeah, my older self was less impressed than I was back in 1972 . . . .

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I remember Spock: Messiah as being a big deal when it first came out: only the second adult-audience ST novel, and only the third ST novel period, with the field-testing of a fascinating technology on a planet with both city-dwellers and exotic nomadic traders. And sex scenes (albeit one that left almost as much to the imagination as the sex scenes and attempted rape scene in my own opus).

I even had it converted to a hardcover, by a local bookbinder who catered mainly to libraries.

It wasn't until I re-read it as an adult that I realized just how wretchedly sexist it is, and how utterly preposterous the technology being field-tested was: artificial telepathy?!?

 

[BoldlyGoingNowhere]

Hard to say -- it's been a long time. They just didn't engage me as much. I recently reread one of his later ones, The Songs of Distant Earth, which I remembered liking when I first read it decades ago, but this time I found it rather superficial and plotless, mainly an exercise in worldbuilding.

I see what you mean! The Songs of Distant Earth is an expansion of a novelette published nearly 30 years prior, and the original is a better read because it is significantly shorter. The novel feels somewhat recycled and overextended. I find that my favorite way to read Clarke is through his short stories. In that format, there is no need to reach that page count and his concepts are condensed. You get more crunch per word that way.

 

[BoldlyGoingNowhere]

Two highlights on the comic-book front:

THE PLANET OF THE APES VERSUS THE FANTASTIC FOUR #1 was fun, even though the editor in me still thinks the title should be THE FANTASTIC FOUR ON THE PLANET OF THE APES. And, yes, the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes are involved.

Meanwhile, the Marvel Monster fan in me was thrilled to see the Legion of Monsters show up in the new issue of THE UNCANNY X-MEN, setting up a whole "Monsters vs. Mutants" storyline.

We're talking Morbius, Werewolf by Night, The Monster of Frankenstein, The Living Mummy, Elsa Bloodstone and even . . . Manphibian!

Nice reads! I've been reading some Marvel stuff recently, too. Specifically, Silver Age Avengers. I find Roy Thomas's verbosity endearing. Not at first, but it grows on you. Or at least it did for me.

 

[Christopher]

I remember Spock: Messiah as being a big deal when it first came out: only the second adult-audience ST novel, and only the third ST novel period, with the field-testing of a fascinating technology on a planet with both city-dwellers and exotic nomadic traders. And sex scenes (albeit one that left almost as much to the imagination as the sex scenes and attempted rape scene in my own opus).

I admit, the sentence "Sara's arms unfurled to reveal jutting breasts barely covered by..." etc. made quite an impression on me as an adolescent reader.

It wasn't until I re-read it as an adult that I realized just how wretchedly sexist it is, and how utterly preposterous the technology being field-tested was: artificial telepathy?!?

The gender attitudes were quite typical for the era -- look at any James Bond movie from the period or significantly thereafter. Hardly commendable, but I'd say the book's sexualization of its female lead was no worse than average for its day.

As for artificial telepathy, I'd argue it's much less preposterous than the idea of natural telepathy. It's basically how "Metamorphosis" said the universal translator worked, by reading brain waves from a distance and interpreting them into concepts and words.

I see what you mean! The Songs of Distant Earth is an expansion of a novelette published nearly 30 years prior, and the original is a better read because it is significantly shorter. The novel feels somewhat recycled and overextended.

I don't recall ever reading the short story. My first exposure was Clarke's movie outline based on it that was published in Omni Magazine in 1981. I think the novel was based on the movie outline.

 

[BoldlyGoingNowhere]

I don't recall ever reading the short story. My first exposure was Clarke's movie outline based on it that was published in Omni Magazine in 1981. I think the novel was based on the movie outline.

It happened in three steps as far as I'm aware. The Songs of Distant Earth was first published in 1958 as a 20+ page short story. Then, in the late 70s, Clarke expanded it into a movie outline that introduced the
fate of Earth backstory. Finally, the full novel was published in 1986, which fleshed out the hard science portion of the whole thing. Between the novel and the original short story, I prefer the latter. The short story has a very powerful sense of "space melancholy" that gets a little buried with all the hard scifi in the novel.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I remember The Songs of Distant Earth being "a big deal" when it was published. I have a memory of a radio or television commercial for it, and I can remember reading it sometime in the 1980s, maybe when I was 12 or 13 (which is about when I read the Foundation series--Foundation and Earth had just come out in paperback) but not really feeling it. It's a book I've thought about revisiting over the years, because I can sort of remember it but not really, and I wonder if it was really worthy of the hype at the time, not to mention that gorgeous Michael Whelan cover.

I read Childhood's End around the time NBC aired V, because it had a cover that reminded me of the V poster (the Visitors' frisbee-shaped ship), and I thought it would be like V. I was almost certainly too young for it then, and I've never revisited it.

I read Imperial Earth in high school, and I remember the constant feeling of, "What the hell's the point of this?"

 

[Christopher]

I read Childhood's End around the time NBC aired V, because it had a cover that reminded me of the V poster (the Visitors' frisbee-shaped ship), and I thought it would be like V. I was almost certainly too young for it then, and I've never revisited it.

I always figured Kenneth Johnson was influenced by Childhood's End when he wrote the scenes of the giant Visitor ships hovering over the UN and major cities. Johnson had a history of derivative writing; The Bionic Woman's "Doomsday is Tomorrow" had a computer villain called ALEX that was a blatant knockoff of HAL from 2001, and The Incredible Hulk: "Prometheus, Part 2" was very much a pastiche of The Andromeda Strain.

And I always figured that V in turn probably influenced Devlin & Emmerich when they made Independence Day.

I read Imperial Earth in high school, and I remember the constant feeling of, "What the hell's the point of this?"

I remember liking it, though I haven't read it in ages. I remember the part about the experimental space drive using a microsingularity to generate power, which may have influenced TNG's depiction of Romulans using singularities to power their drives -- although Clarke wrote the book before Stephen Hawking figured out that black holes that small would evaporate quickly. I also liked the part about the spaceship passengers riding bicycles around a toroidal track to generate weight -- a simpler alternative to 2001's centrifuge, since you don't need to spend power rotating the centrifuge itself. I particularly liked the bit about passengers earning plaques declaring that they had bicycled from Saturn to Earth.

I also remember the scene establishing that future Earth's presidential candidates were nominated by others or selected by computers or something rather than choosing to run for office, on the principle that someone who wants the power of the presidency is the last person who should be trusted with it. That's a discussion I've frequently reflected on in recent years.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I don't think the Framers wanted people actively campaigning for President, and they certainly did all they could to discourage the development of strong political parties. They'd seen partisan politics in Europe, and wanted no part of it.

 

[bdub76]

V was a science fiction adaptation of "It Can't Happen Here."

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[Reanok]

I read Spock Messiah and didn't like it all years ago.I got rid of the book because I didn't like it all.Poor story telling and badly written characters it wasn't any good that's for sure.I forced myself to finish it.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

As for artificial telepathy, I'd argue it's much less preposterous than the idea of natural telepathy.

You forgot to mention the Klingon Mind-Sifter and possibly the Neural Neutralizer.

But this was long range artificial telepathy.

I read Spock Messiah and didn't like it all years ago.I got rid of the book because I didn't like it all.Poor story telling and badly written characters it wasn't any good that's for sure.I forced myself to finish it.

I'd classify it as being a so bad it's good guilty pleasure. As well as an object lesson in how far TrekLit has come. And it's certainly better than Marshak & Culbreath.

 

[Denise]

Currently reading There Will Be Bodies by Lindsey Davis and Raja the Gullible and His Mother by Rabih Alammeddine

Just finished Richard Osman's The Impossible Fortune (Thursday Murder Club). Loved it.

 

[Christopher]

You forgot to mention the Klingon Mind-Sifter and possibly the Neural Neutralizer.

Which are short-range devices and thus not good analogies for mind-reading from a distance, which is exactly what "Metamorphosis" claimed the UT was doing.

But this was long range artificial telepathy.

Yes, and the long-range part is the big physics problem regardless of whether it's natural or artificial, because the difficulties getting resolution on neural activity over a distance, with a moving target, are enormous. But since that's the same problem regardless, it cancels out. The point is that it requires less suspension of disbelief for me to accept the idea of a machine that can do it than it does to accept the idea of a naturally evolved brain that can do it. At least with a machine, we can presume it reads electromagnetic activity. Fiction and pseudoscience about telepathy almost never offers any hypothesis for how it supposedly works, beyond just tossing the word "telepathic" or "psionic" around as if it explained anything.

 

[JD]

I finished Twelve Months early this morning, and I thought it was great. The last Dresden Files book was a huge one with a massive battle that destroyed a huge chunk of Chicago, so understandably this one quite a bit smaller in scale, with most of it just dealing with the aftermath of the last book. It was a really well done aftermath, that worked in some really nice character and story arc development. The end also appears to be setting up the next big conflict, so that's going to make for the next book pretty hard.
I'm now back working on my TNG reading/rereading, but I decided to jump back in time to read some books from before the Q Continuum trilogy that I haven't read yet. Next up is Triangle: Imzadi II by Peter David, which I decided to read after there were numerous references to it in the Slings & Arrows novella.

 

[bdub76]

Some more reading rabbit holes this time.

I read The Dollhouse by James Cross and enjoyed it. In his afterward, he mentioned The Haunted Doll's House by M.R. James. Having discovered him last year, I tracked down this story. It's included in A Warning to the Curious, and Other Ghost Stories, which is available at Project Gutenberg. Going to read this one tonight.

The Doll-House - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Haunted Dolls' House - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Also, I enjoyed Word Processor of the Gods in Skeleton Crew. I didn't much care for Man Who Would Not Shake Hands or Beachworld. But the Reaper's Image stood out.

Thinking of getting a subscription to Analog.

Another alternative for public domain books: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/ebooks.php?forumid=130