'The Book of Three' by Lloyd Alexander

When I was younger, Disney released an animated film called The Black Cauldron. As Disney films go, it wasn’t the greatest — I remember being more excited about my adventures with the computer game than with the film itself.

A couple of years later, I ran across a copy of the novel The Black Cauldron at my library, and had a hard time reading it since it was so different from the film. I kept expecting things to happen like they had in the movie, but the book was so different that I gave up on it. I felt like I’d missed out on part of the story, too — the book had a movie cover and gave no indication that it was part of a larger series.

When I was a little older, I found out that The Black Cauldron was actually part two of five. And so I picked up The Book of Three (which, as it happens, formed the basis for most of the plot of the film) and found myself drawn into Lloyd Alexander’s fantasy world of Prydain.

The Book of Three is about a boy named Taran who lives on a farm with the old scholar Dallben and the farmer Coll. Taran longs to be a hero, and as he hears the stories about the Death-Lord Arawn and the war leader known as the Horned King, he daydreams about leaving the farm in search of adventure. Coll gives Taran the title of “Assistant Pig Keeper,” since Taran’s job is to help care for Hen Wen, a prophetic pig. It’s meant to be a joke, but as the story progresses, the title becomes much more important.

Something upsets the animals, and Hen Wen escapes. Taran goes chasing after her and loses her in the forest. He runs smack into the army of the Horned King and is wounded. A heroic prince named Gwydion finds him and tends to his wound, and the two go out looking for Hen Wen. They meet a hairy little creature named Gurgi (who isn’t quite a man, but isn’t quite a dog, either) and discover that the Horned King is after Hen Wen. Gwydion and Taran have a frightening encounter with undead warriors called the “Cauldron born”, and they are wounded and imprisoned in the Spiral Castle. There, they meet Princess Eilonwy and the two resolve to escape. Taran persuades her to free Gwydion from the dungeon as well, but since he is not specific about who his friend is, she frees a bard named Fflewddur Fflam instead. The castle collapses due to an enchantment being broken by a magical sword Eilonwy had pilfered, and the characters believe that Gwydion has died.

Taran decides that he must warn Gwydion’s kingdom about the Horned King, and the three set off with Gurgi in tow. They realize they’re being followed by Cauldron-born, and are driven off course. Several adventures ensue before they find Hen Wen and the Horned King’s army. Taran challenges the Horned King to combat, and the evil adversary smashes his sword with a single blow. Taran grabs the magical sword from Eilonwy and is barely able to budge it from its scabbard because of its great power. Just pulling the blade out slightly causes lightning to shoot out and burn him. Taran blacks out as Gwydion emerges, uttering a weird word. The Horned King bursts into flame. It turns out that the only thing that could destroy him was hearing his secret name.

Gwydion explains the series of events that allowed him to survive, as well as to learn to speak to the hearts of all living creatures. He gives each of the companions gifts; Taran forgoes his own and just asks to be taken home, where he can be an Assistant Pig-Keeper in peace. Eilonwy and Gurgi go with him, since they have nowhere else to go.

That’s an awful lot of adventure for a single book, and there are four other books in the series: The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer and The High King. All of these are reimaginings of Welsh mythology, and they take place in a world where humans have had all of their special skills and tools taken from them so that they have to toil at anything they do. The Death Lord Arawn is the source of evil, and until he is killed by Taran in the last book, he commands the Cauldron-born,  a vast legion of undead soldiers made up of the dead warriors of Prydain’s past.

So, what makes these books worth reading? First of all, they’re funny. Alexander managed to work a lot of humor into these books, from the bizarre antics to Gurgi to the lying tendencies of Fflewddur Fflam to the emotional outbursts of Eilonwy to the designation of Taran as the “Assistant Pig-Keeper.” Things get very dark and serious at points, but there’s usually a light touch somewhere to brighten the mood.

Second, they’re well-written. Alexander wrote these books for children, but he didn’t dumb them down at all. He uses complicated names and complex stories, and he isn’t afraid to allow some of the characters (like Arawn and Gwydion) to personify good and evil. He also skillfully weaves in characters like Gurgi, who are humorous and melodramatic, but who play an important role in the growth and development of Taran.

Third, they’re epic. But unlike other fantasy epics, these books are not about one giant quest to destroy evil and make the world right again. Rather, they’re about the growth and development of Taran and Eilonwy as they mature from youths into adults. The fourth book, Taran Wanderer is both tedious and fascinating in its lack of action and insistence on Taran’s growth as a character. He really transforms from being a boy to a man ready to become a hero, and it’s fun to watch because you’re already so invested in the character.

Overall, I’d highly recommend this series. It’s easy to read, it’s a lot of fun, and it’s much, much better and deeper than the Disney film would lead you to believe.

Sean recommends: Start with The Book of Three, and if you like it, read the rest. As good as the first book is, the last two are the high points of the series.

"The Neverending Story" by Michael Ende

When I was growing up in the 1980s, fantasy was a pretty mainstream genre. I remember watching the animated adaptations of Tolkien, playing with He-Man toys and seeing films like The Last Unicorn, The Princess Bride and The Black Cauldron. But one of the most interesting films of the era came out in 1984, and it had a very interesting title — The Neverending Story.

The film was actually an adaptation of the first half of a 1979 German novel by Michael Ende. I didn’t read the book until I was a little bit older, and the edition I got was different from the one I own today. The library edition I initially read had text in green when it took place in the fantasy world and red when it took place in our world. It also had illustrations on the cover and inside the book that were not derived from the film, and thus very different in conceptualization. I bring this up because the film is likely to be familiar to people, while the book is not. And while the film is a good adaptation of part of the novel, it really misses the point of what Ende was trying to say.

The plot is very interesting. Bastian Balthazzar Bux is a young boy whose mother has died and whose father neglects him. One day, he hides from some bullies in a bookstore owned by a man named Carl Conrad Correander, who is reading a book called The Neverending Story. Bastian steals it when Correander isn’t looking, and takes it up to the attic of his school so he can play hookey and read. He finds himself immersed in a story about a place called Fantastica that is facing a crisis, and the story frequently cuts back to show his reaction to different elements. But as he reads, he finds himself being drawn deeper and deeper into the tale until he realizes that he has become a part of it.

The story Bastian is reading concerns a young warrior named Atreyu who is sent on a quest to find a cure for Fantastica’s “Childlike Empress,” a benevolent ruler who has fallen ill as a plague called “The Nothing” sweeps across the land. Atreyu is guided by an amulet called AURYN, which has two snakes wrapped into a coil, the one eating the other’s tail, like an ourobouros. This amulet represents all of the power and wisdom of the Childlike Empress, and gives Atreyu the strength he needs to complete the quest.

Eventually, Atreyu rescues a luckdragon named Falkor, and the two travel together before finding out that the only thing that can save the Childlike Empress is a human child. They rush back to the Ivory Tower, and she reveals that she needs the human child to give her a name. Bastian feels he has a talent for naming things, and shouts out that her name is “Moonchild.” With that, he is pulled into the world of Fantastica and discovers that the “Nothing” is the result of humans giving up on fantasy. Bastian is given the power of AURYN so that he can wander around the realm of Fantastica and rebuild it with his imagination.

This is where the story really diverges from the films, and though The Neverending Story II tried to tell this second half, it did it so clumsily, and excluded so many important scenes, that Bastian seemed like a pawn in a political battle instead of a victim of his own arrogance. What happens in the novel is that Bastian goes out and has many adventures, using AURYN to grant any wish that comes to mind. Bastian eventually defeats an evil witch named Xayide and makes her his servant, but she eventually turns things around and starts to manipulate him so she can regain her power. Bastian and Atreyu become friends, but Atreyu becomes more and more concerned that Bastian is misusing AURYN and losing himself in the process. Xayide persuades him to wage war on the Ivory Tower and to try to crown himself childlike emperor. Atreyu defeats him, and Bastian wanders off, memories slipping away, until he finally becomes a boy without a name.

Bastian finds a group of humans that have forgotten everything, and who, like him, were once the great shapers of the world before their memories went away. He realizes that he only has a few precious memories left, and goes off in search of his one true wish. He eventually loses all of his memories, and Atreyu helps him to achieve his wish and return home. The book is gone, and Bastian goes to speak to its owner to tell him what happened. As it happens, Correander has also been to Fantastica, and the two become friends, bound together by their experiences. Bastian also mends the rift with his father, and his life is, presumably, better in the end.

This book had a huge impact on me as a child, because it was really the first time I’d ever seen a fantasy world constructed for the purpose of analyzing the psychology of a human being. Ende was very concerned about people losing a sense of wonder and awe for the world of imagination, and he created a means of showing the value of it. But at the same time, he decided to show readers what happens when one becomes too immersed in fantasy — that he or she can lose a sense of self and connection to others, and plunge into chaos and darkness. Bastian’s power in the world of Fantastica is great, but it warps and corrupts him because he isn’t connected to anyone. Even Atreyu, who represents Bastian’s good and heroic side, has to stop Bastian from corrupting the world and then has to help the feeble shell of Bastian find a way home.

Another interesting thing about this book is that it’s incredibly rich. Ende didn’t adopt Tolkien’s style of fantasy, and though AURYN may seen at times like the One Ring, it’s a very different device. AURYN is not evil; it is meant to bestow power so that the person who wields it can shape the world. It is as much a device of protection and goodness as it is a device of indulgence and evil. When Bastian wields its absolute power, he is corrupted not by AURYN itself, but by the delusion that he is the source of its power.

I would also argue that the Childlike Empress and Xayide are mirror images of each other. Moonchild is a wonderful person who is wise and powerful and kind. She brings out what is best in Bastian, and she needs him to help her because her world is in need of the power of imagination. Xayide is a terrifying woman who is cunning and malicious and who lusts for power. She brings out what is worst in Bastian because she needs him to grow her own power. Ultimately, Xayide is nothing without Bastian, but in corrupting him, she can achieve a level of power and standing that will make her almost as great as the Childlike Empress.

Just thinking about this book for the purposes of review makes me want to go and read it again. It is really a fantastic adventure, and much deeper and more meaningful than most children’s fantasy. The movies only really scratched the surface of the book’s true meaning. What Ende was really trying to say is that imagination is a wonderful and necessary thing… but that we must use it towards positive and benevolent ends or it will ultimately consume us. Used correctly, the stories we can conceive of will go on and on and give us more wonderful things. Used improperly, our imaginations will lead us to death, destruction, chaos and loss.

Sean’s Recommendation: Get a copy of this book immediately. Read it alone. Read it to your kids. Discuss it with other people. It’s a really amazing work of fiction that I highly recommend.

"The Space Merchants" by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth

I love science fiction. I love marketing. So, I guess you could say The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth is pretty much one of my favorite books ever.

And you’d be right. This novel, written, in the early 1950s, envisioned a future where entertainment and advertising have become so entwined that ads are the dominant form of popular culture. Ad writers can become “Star class copysmiths” and be rich, famous and respected. Ad firms are like film studios, and ad executives are the most powerful people on the planet. One of these firms, Fowler-Shocken, is tasked with selling the public on the idea of colonizing Venus, despite the fact that it’s a terrible place where no one would ever want to live.

But in the midst of this consumer culture, a group of people called the “convervationists” is operating in secret. They’re sort of like environmentalists, believing in the preservation of natural things and renouncing the ideas of rampant consumerism waste.  It’s bad to be outed as a “consie”, especially if you work in an advertising firm. But unlike the secret so-called communists of the 1950s, the consies are actually intelligent and organized, with the plan to turn public opinion against Venus so they can take it themselves and turn it into a paradise.

The story itself is something of a fall and rise sort of adventure, where the main character, Mitch Courtenay, works his way to the top of Fowler-Schocken only to find himself framed by a rival and branded a consie. He moves to the evirons of society, discovers how he’s been framed, and outs the consie conspirators. There’s a nice twist to the ending that puts things in perspective, but the structure of the story is fairly standard stuff. Were I judging the book on the merits of its plot, I would probably consider it a readable, but mediocre title. (I certainly feel this way about the sequel, The Merchants’ War, which follows the pattern of the original while updating the book’s ideas for the 1980s.)

No, what makes this book so awesome is the world that Pohl and Kornbluth conceived. It’s frighteningly close to the world we live in today. Advertising is used not just as a means of persuading people to buy products, but to shape public opinion about real issues, like the scarcity of water and fuel, and to make people feel like their lives are better than they really are. Every piece of communication is persuasive; every idea has an agenda. Even the simplest slogan has been massaged by expert ad men. The world is a dark and frightening place, and yet society is kept under control by these resassuring messages that they should be happy because of the products they consume.

One of the most memorable and horrifying scenes in the book comes when Courtenay finds his way into the facility where “Chicken Little,” a processed chicken product, is packaged. What he finds is a giant, living mound of chicken tissue, where butchers come and cut pieces of flesh off to prepare for processing and packaging. The campaign around the product leads you to believe you’re eating normal chicken, but this genetically engineered, unthinking living blob of meat is all it is. The idea is that as long as people don’t know what they’re really eating, society will hold together.

A lot of science fiction looks to the future and sees exploration, space ships, aliens, and evolution. These things exist in a world where there is a single government, and poverty has been extinguished, and anyone can be an adventurer. That is not the case in The Space Merchants, where society is, instead, a glittering sea of false promises established to keep people from understanding how bad things really are. Happiness is not rooted in simple pleasures and natural living, but in consuming products and listening to advertising messages. Achievement is not rooted in social benefit, but in manipulation and half-truths. The ad executives have all the real power; public officials (even including the President of the United States!) are an anachronism. In many ways, The Space Merchants is more realistic than most of the science fiction you’ll find from the 1950s… or in the entire genre.

If you don’t want to read the book, CBS once produced a condensed radio version of it. It misses pretty much the entire point of the novel, but it does cover the plot.

I want to comment on one more thing, and that’s the style of this book. 50s sci-fi really has a certain feel to it — an idea of progress towards simplicity, an idea of buying shiny new things and discarding old ones. The future is a place much like the 1950s, where everything seems exciting and safe, and there’s no pain or suffering. More modern books have played with this theme and shown the rotten supports below this sort of lifestyle. The Space Merchants fits into this paradigm, and it was clearly far ahead of its time in its ideas. I fully expect this genre of “nostalgia punk” sci-fi to show up again down the road. I may even write some myself.

"The Merchants' War" by Frederik Pohl

Ironically enough, I’d place the 1984 sequel, The Merchants’ War, much closer in tone to the futuro noir style of Blade Runner than this nostaglic tone I’m referring to. I felt like The Merchants’ War was a lot closer to cyberpunk in tone, though it lacked the foresight to see the impact computers were having on the world. Pohl seemed a lot more concerned with critiquing collectible items and the cola wars than he was about returning to the themes of the original book, and it’s a shame. As I said, it’s not that the sequel is bad… just that it’s not nearly as groundbreaking or memorable as the original.

Sean’s recommendation: Track down a copy of The Space Merchants, read it, and enjoy it. It’s a fantastic book that was really forward-thinking 50 years ago, and which still has a lot of relevance today. The Merchants’ War isn’t too bad, either, if you’re craving more when you’re done.

You can get both in one edition if you’re really interested.

"Neuromancer" by William Gibson

There are a lot of terms on the internet we take for granted today. One of those terms is “cyberspace,” and it’s a word that derives from a 1984 novel by William Gibson called Neuromancer, widely regarded as the first real “cyberpunk” novel. What cyberpunk is and what it stands for is somewhat open to debate. But most people agree that Neuromancer and the 1982 film Blade Runner really established and popularized the genre in the minds of science fiction fans. Both featured near-future settings where the world was becoming a giant mishmash of Asian-Euro-American culture. Both explored the ideas of artificial intelligence and what it means to be human. Both featured heroes who were anti-heroes, in a sense; Blade Runner’s Deckard is a bounty hunter who murders artificial beings because they are not human, while Neuromancer’s Case is a hacker for hire who doesn’t seem to have much in the way of scruples. Both played an important role in shaping science fiction post-Star Wars, and both inspired a whole wave of Japanese comics and animation.

So, before I talk about Neuromancer, it’s important that we establish what a groundbreaking book it was when it came out. William Gibson envisioned a world where technology had created two alternate realities — a real world where people were increasingly using tech to enhance their human abilities, and a virtual tech world where humans could manipulate machines into doing what they wanted. Gibson didn’t really understand computers that well, and he didn’t know much about hacking. His hacker underground seems to be more inspired by punk rock and motorcycle gang culture than 1980s computer geek lingo.  But the ideas of Neuromancer are really, really cool. What’s more, they’ve shaped reality in some important ways.

But first, let’s talk about the novel itself. I first read Neuromancer when I was in high school, just as the Internet was beginning to catch on. To be perfectly honest, I found the book to be barely readable. Gibson’s minimalist style was really difficult for me to handle. I often had to re-read chapters to understand what was going on, and I had a hard time following his action sequences, which often lacked the necessary description for me to fully conceptualize where characters were standing in a room or what was happening to them. Even during a recent re-reading of the novel, I found it a ridiculously challenging experience. I tend to skim over description and focus on the meat of the story. You can’t do that with Gibson; it seems like every word is important. I found myself having to read each chapter slowly so I could absorb the sparse detail Gibson gives. There are some really memorable scenes in Neuromancer, but you can miss them if you read too quickly and find yourself ridiculously confused.

And that remains my chief criticism of the book — while I think Gibson is a good writer (and his later works are a lot easier to read), Neuromancer demands so much of my attention that it’s not something I could really read for pleasure. I suspect part of the reason it got so much attention when it came out was because people were persuaded enough about its cool concepts that they were able to look past the writing style. Perhaps the style commanded their attention. Whatever the case, I know that there are people in the world who absolutely love this book, and who have read it dozens of times. I also know that there are people who never make it past the first chapter. Some stop reading after the book’s opening line, “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” This is just not a book for everyone. To put it another way, it’s an adrenaline rush that many won’t find welcome.

On the other hand, Neuromancer has some insanely cool concepts that are as exciting in 2009 as they were when the book came out 25 years ago. The virtual reality known as the “matrix” originated in Neuromancer, and while popular culture has taken the concept and turned it into many other things, the idea of hacker “cowboys” finding ways around “black ICE” while running around with “Razorgirls” with mirrored eye implants and retractable-blade fingernails is pretty distinct to this novel. Neuromancer’s other distinctive feature involves an AI called Wintermute manipulating humans so that it can achieve its own unusual goals… and while the rogue AI concept has shown up in other science fiction, it’s never been quite as cool or edgy as it’s been in Gibson’s novel. Hacking the matrix, too, is an exciting ordeal, with hackers jacking in through electrodes that connect directly to their brains and interacting with computer programs in a wireframe environment. In the world of the matrix, the hacker is powerful, but susceptible to death in the form of “flatlining” — having a jolt administered directly to his or her brain. One of the characters in the book has actually been killed by this, and finds a way to survive in the matrix as an AI RAM construct.

All in all, I guess you could say I’m torn in recommending this book to everyone. On the one hand, it remains one of the freshest, coolest novels in all of science fiction, and it’s served as a massive influence not only on media, but on the way we conceptualize the internet today. On the other hand, it’s one of the more challenging science fiction novels you can pick up and read, and a lot of people who have been spoiled by all the cyberpunk films, anime, comics and video games out there are bound to say, “why bother?” So, I’ll throw this out there — the sequel, Count Zero, is really good, and the final book in the Sprawl trilogy, Mona Lisa Overdrive, features the return of Molly Millions, the highly memorable mirror-eyed, blade-fingered Razorgirl from Neuromancer. But you have to read Neuromancer for those other two books to make any sense, because Gibson doesn’t really slow down to explain things a second time.

So, there you have it. If you’ve got even a shred of curiosity about cyberpunk or how it all began, you owe it to yourself to read Neuromancer. But if you’re content to stick with more polished efforts from the 1990s like The Matrix or Ghost in the Shell, you’re not going to be missing a whole lot, because while Neuromancer was the original, those later efforts have taken Gibson’s ideas and turned them into stories that are more palatable to most science fiction fans.

Sean Recommends: Read this book if you’re looking for some serious, hardcore sci-fi. Otherwise, you might try some of Gibson’s later books first (like Virtual Light, which kicks off the Bridge Trilogy), since they’re actually a little easier to read, though they’re less groundbreaking in their ideas.

I feel sort of silly reviewing Frank Herbert’s Dune, because it’s considered to be the bestselling science fiction book of all time, so chances are good that anyone who’s reading my reviews has already read it. And even those who haven’t read it probably have it on their list of books to read. So, in the spirit of making this review interesting and useful, I’m going to talk about the reasons why Dune, unlike a lot science fiction from the ’60s and ’70s, is still important and relevant today.

Just in case you haven’t read Dune, I’ll give you a quick overview. Several thousand years in the future, humanity has spread to the stars, and culture has shifted away from machines (due to a machine uprising) and instead towards human achievement. People live longer and benefit from advanced medicine and technology. Human “computers” called Mentats are used for logistics, calculations and strategy. Women of the order of the Bene Gesserit oversee religion and evolutionary breeding. Space guild “navigators” are the only people capable of folding space, but do so at the cost of being hideously deformed and inhuman. Human warriors are trained to be much more ruthless and capable than any other warriors in history, and the Emperor’s Sardaukar troops and the culture of people known as the “Fremen” are among the most powerful fighters in the universe. Much of this advanced human achievement is made possible by a drug known as spice, “melange,” a substance found on a desert planet called Arrakis… also known as Dune. It’s said that whoever controls the spice, controls the universe. The great houses take turns running the planet of Dune, but their power is checked by the might of the emperor.

Duke Leto Atreides is given the opportunity to oversee the planet, and he brings his Bene Gesserit consort, Jessica, and his son, Paul, with him. Unfortunately, the emperor has been conspiring with House Harkonnen to knock the Atreides out of power, and a betrayal occurs that results in the death of the Duke and the stranding of Paul and Jessica in the desert. They are nearly eaten by the enormous desert sandworms before they are resuced by the Fremen, and Paul eventually discovers that his true destiny is to lead the Fremen to take over their own world and shift the balance of power in the universe. Paul is able to do this because he is the end result of the Bene Gesserit breeding program and is able to drink the spice-concerntrated “water of life” and live through it — granting him the ability to see any point in time. Paul and the Fremen take over the empire, and the book ends… though Paul’s eventual doom (and the  conquering of the universe at the hands of the violent Fremen) is spelled out in the sequel, Dune Messiah. The two books that follow, Children of Dune and God Emperor of Dune tell the story of Paul’s children, Leto and Ghanima. The other two books in the series, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune are a little less readable, and ultimately end in Arrakis losing its special place in the universe and another home for the spice being created.

(Some other prequels have been written by Herbert’s son, Brian, based upon Herbert’s notes. Besides being unnecessary, they’re not very well-written compared to the original. I don’t recommend them.)

Dune is an important book in science fiction because it was the book that showed that science fiction and the sort of world-building you see in fantasy could work together to create a cohesive whole. Herbert didn’t just ask, “What if this spice existed?” and tell a story about it. He created a vast universe with many millenia of history shaping the views of his characters, and he developed a complex political intrigue that made his universe seem all the bigger and more magnificent. Even though 90% of Dune occurs on Arrakis, you always get a sense of the bigger scope and feel of the universe around it. The empire feels absolutely enormous, and the struggles of Paul Atreides are truly epic. Star Wars take a lot of cues from Dune, as do many of the sci-fi space opera series that followed in its wake. It’s an important turning point in science fiction, and it really established the modern genre of space fantasy (books that are set in space, but that aren’t necessarily science fiction) that was so popular in the ’80s.

But at the same time, Dune is hard sci-fi in the respect that it does offer plausible explanations for most of the things that happen in the story. Herbert really thought through space travel and human evolution, and he developed his galactic empire around the idea that humans, on their own, could not traverse the vast interstellar distances required and still have a cohesive civilization. His ideas about human beings serparating into different groups and becoming the ultimate fighters, ultimate navigators, ultimate computers, and ultimate breeders is quite different from much of the science fiction that followed. The only thing one might call “magic” in Herbert’s universe is the spice itself, and even then, he attempts to offer explanations into how it allows people to accomplish great feats.

Dune is also a novel with a lot of relevance to the world around us. Herbert based a lot of his ideas off his own experiences. The Bene Gesserit are based around the Catholic church. The great houses take cues from the idea of superpower nations. The spice itself is very similar to oil in some ways, and it’s no accident that the Fremen are modeled after the Bedouin people out in the Arabian desert. The ideas of Herbert’s books often centered around what it meant for humans to become gods in some fashion, and Dune shows the rise of a messiah only to bring him down in the sequel. Readers should even be left wondering if Paul’s rise was a good thing, or if his fall was inevitable. Even the “Golden Path” his son pioneers comes at a great cost to the rest of the universe. Again, you just don’t see this sort of philosophical debate going on in science fiction very often, and many of the imitative works (including the books written by Herbert’s son) have lacked the insights Dune had to offer.

I also want to take a moment to talk about Dune Messiah. If you read Dune and skip this sequel, you’re really missing out on the point of the series. I’ve heard that Herbert originally intended for them to be the same novel, but his editor did not appreciate the message of the second part since it did not embrace the heroism of Paul’s rise to the top. As a sequel, Dune Messiah is a big letdown, because it’s about the fall of Paul Atreides, not his continuing adventures. But if you read it as the rest of the story of the novel, it’s a bit easier to see how it plays a role in finishing the story.

All in all, Dune is one of those books that I’d recommend to just about anyone. It begs to be read multiple times, and I’d argue it’s one of the most important works in the history of science fiction, and a novel that really changed the way science fiction is read and written today. Don’t settle for the David Lynch disaster of a film or the Sci-Fi channel miniseries; both lack the power and punch of the book itself, and both gloss over a lot of the important details that make the book so interesting. This is one of those stories that’s best told in novel form.

Sean recommends: If this one’s on your list of books to read, bump it up to the #1 slot. If you’ve already read it, read it again. And read Dune Messiah when you’re through.

"Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson

Every now and then, I read a book that makes me want to give up the idea of being a science fiction writer. Sometimes, it’s because the book is so popular, and yet so awful, that I don’t think it’s worth my trouble to write for an indiscriminate audience. Other times, it’s because the book is so good, and so far beyond what I could accomplish on my own, that I just want to curl up in a corner and sob while I reread it.

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is definitely one of the latter books. How I’ve made it through 17 years without knowing that this book existed is a testament to the terrible science fiction I’ve been reading, I suppose.

I don’t think I could fully describe this book if I tried. It’s wonderful. It’s part cyberpunk, part dystopian satire and part linguistic primer. The story takes place in a future where government is broken down and people live in territories controlled by franchises sold by organizations like the Mafia, Mr. Lee’s Hong Kong, the nation of Nippon and yes, even the United States government. The world is a lawless place where violence reigns and the authorities are privatized. One of the main characters, a 15-year-old girl with the moniker Y.T. (“Yours Truly”), is a Kourier — a skateboarding delivery girl who catches rides on the back of cars with a magnetic “poon” cable. Her partner in crime is a half-Nipponese, Half-African man named Hiro Protagonist, the last of the freelance hackers and the world’s greatest sword fighter (if you can believe his business card, anyhow). Hiro and Y.T. are working together to gather information for the CIC (a combination of the CIA and the Library of Congress that has since become the backbone of the Internet) about a street drug called “Snow Crash” — a strange new synthetic drug that can wipe out a human mind like a computer virus. Their quest takes place both in the real world and in the Metaverse, a 3D virtual world where users interact with lifelike avatars and own virtual property (think Second Life, but keep in mind that Snow Crash was first published in 1992, long before most people were even talking about the Internet). The idea is like the Virtual Reality concepts of the early 1990s, but far more developed.

The “snow crash” virus turns out to be something that’s rooted in Sumerian mythology and linguistics, and Hiro spends a good chunk of the book investigating its origins. Y.T., in the meantime, gains the attention of the Mafia boss Uncle Enzo and is recruited to run several missions that involve a lot of danger and explosions. She also attracts the attention of the villainous Raven, a giant Aleut with homicidal tendencies. Raven is a unique villain in that there is a disincentive to stopping him — he lugs around a hydrogen bomb that’s wirelessly linked to his brain. If he dies, it detonates. Thus the private law enforcement tries to contain his killing sprees instead of taking him out.

Snow Crash has a great sense of humor about it, and the first chapter, while a little out of place thematically, offers a nice introduction to the world and the two main characters by chronicling the adventures of “The Deliverator,” a high speed pizza deliveryman who faces certain death if he misses that 30 minute delivery guarantee. As the book goes on, it gets a little more serious, and I was actually quite annoyed to see the main characters (particularly Hiro) start dropping into soliloquy mode towards the end. The near-final showdown between Hiro and Raven involves a long, drawn-out conversation between the two characters about their fathers which is seriously hard to believe. I suspect Stephenson was running out of room to cram in all the story he wanted to tell, and this was the only way he could do it. (His solution in more recent books is to just keep on writing, and reader be damned; his last series, The Baroque Cycle, was 2700 pages long across three volumes!)

Still, I’m stunned by the “big ideas” in this book, of which there are three: the idea of franchise-states, the idea of the Metaverse, and the idea of a linguistic virus. The third one is by far the centerpiece of the book, and something I find quite annoying because a) I came up with a similar idea a year ago and b) Stephenson did it so much better than I could have that I almost want to fold up my laptop and forget about writing ever again. I have to take consolation in the fact, however, that Stephenson’s first two novels bombed before he achieved success with Snow Crash, and despite the many, many great reasons for reading this book (if you haven’t read it, go get a copy right now and get started!), I still spotted minor grammatical errors, continuity blips and plot holes, suggesting that the novel still needed another pass in the revision phase. But those are microscopic gripes for such a magnificent novel. It’s one of the best science fiction novels I’ve ever read, and I highly recommend it.

I’ll be reading Stephenson’s next two books, The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon, once I finish off the stack of science fiction books I just picked up, so check back in a few months for reviews of those. Hopefully, by then, I’ll be over having my creative soul crushed by Stephenson’s amazing talent and back to working on developing my own ideas again.

SEAN’S RECOMMENDATION: If you enjoy science fiction of any kind, you should read this book.  It’s a bit on the “hard” side of science fiction, and cyberpunk’s certainly not for everyone, but it’s plotted well enough that it’s a rewarding read.

"Childhood's End" by Arthur C. Clarke

Humans often think of themselves as the acme of evolution. But what if we’re simply a transitional state – an incubator, even – for a much greater consciousness that will appear in future generations? And what if everything we thought we knew about deities, angels, demons, and spirits, was simply a vision into what the future held for mankind?

This is the premise of Childhood’s End, a wonderful classic science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke. The beginning of the book will seem familiar, since the strong visual Clarke envisions has been used elsewhere in sci-fi since. Alien spaceships appear in the sky, and hover over all the major cities. But the aliens don’t reveal themselves immediately, and they communicate with humans through a series of psychic messages. These aliens judge humanity harshly, forcing the world to disarm its weapons and to stop its violent ways. They take a particular vengeance on those who harm animals in a cruel way. The aliens guide humanity to become better, and as the generations move forward, the aliens gradually reveal themselves, and it’s clear why they have been so hesitant to show themselves. (I won’t spoil the surprise, but let’s just say they have to wait for Western civilization to outgrow some of its medieval mythology.)

At first, it appears that the aliens are on Earth simply to make it a better place, and humanity enters a golden age of peace and prosperity. But as children begin exhibiting strange behavior, it’s clear that something more is going on. These aliens aren’t ambassadors, but midwives… waiting to take humanity from its fetal state into the birth of something new, and something wonderful… but something downright terrifying as well. Humanity’s era is over, and in one generation, everything on Earth will change forever.

And that’s where Childhood’s End is different from other science fiction stories like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, V, Independence Day or The Day The Earth Stood Still, where mysterious aliens make first contact with humans –  these aliens are not on Earth to warn humanity about its impending doom, or to feed upon the humans or destroy the planet. No, they’re motivated by a higher purpose, with a higher understanding of events that really is beyond anything humans will be able to understand. What winds up happening in the end is so intense, so awe-inspiring, that it’s like watching an act of God occurring. And since the change into the next state occurs in human children, there is no way that human parents could have been informed without getting massively over-protective.

One of the great things about science fiction is its ability to question what it really means to be human, and, in fact, whether being human is such a great thing to begin with. Other genres of literature would simply accept the idea that humanity is a good thing, and stop asking questions then and there. But in science fiction, the idea that humanity is not the greatest point of evolution can be put forth. In Clarke’s view, humans are simply the primitive ancestors of the wonderful, powerful, terrible things to come. The universe is waiting not for humanity to arise and voyage to the stars, but some other entity that began as human, but which became something different entirely.

Childhood’s End is a great read. It’s short, it’s interesting, and it’s full of twists and turns. There are a few places where it’s a little dated (it’s pretty clear that it was written in the 50s due to the gender attitudes and ideas that show up), but the themes are fairly universal. There is a sense of wonder and amazement in this novel… but also a profound sense of melancholy. I’d recommend it to anyone who has even a passing interest in science fiction, because it’s very readable, with interesting characters and clear explanations of what’s going on… but at the same time, it represents the biggest of big ideas that science fiction can put forth.

GENRE: Hard Science Fiction
STORY: ****
CHARACTERS: ****
CONCEPT: ****
RE-READABILITY: ****

"The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman

What would happen if we really waged interstellar war? One thing Star Wars and Star Trek don’t take into account are the effects of relativity when people travel fast enough that they’re approaching the speed of light. What might seem like weeks to the travellers could seem like years to the people back on Earth. And that’s exactly what happens in Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, a book where the main character, William Mandella, is enlisted to fight in a war against an alien menace known as the Taurans (named after the constellation they’re believed to be from). As Mandella goes off on campaigns, he returns to find Earth increasingly more alien as the years go by, until finally, it is a place so different that he can no longer even call it home.

Haldeman says in the prologue that he intended this book to be an analogy of the Vietnam War, but that he was surprised that readers who weren’t familiar with Vietnam could still read it and understand it. That’s a very interesting point, because had Haldeman not brough up Vietnam, I would have never made the connection. For one thing, he does such a good job of distancing himself from the politics of the 1970s (when this book was written) and describing a military that is evolved from what we have today.  Only the best and the brightest are conscripted into the military, and training conditions are harsh — many die before it’s even over. There is a rule that every solider must be given a mate of the opposite gender if he or she wishes, resulting in a 50/50 split of males and females and forced couplings among non-romantically-involved soldiers. The military operates so much like a machine that the human element is often forgotten. This is very evidence when the soldiers return home and experience “future shock” — something the military never accounted for and does not seem concerned about. In fact, the military becomes the one constant in their lives they can count on.

One of the interesting ideas of the book is that the soldiers are only briefly effective due to the effects of time dilation. The Taurans are unprepared, at first, but quickly up the ante with more deadly weapons. Soldiers who are sent out to fight with the latest and greatest weaponry return home with the equivalent of peashooters since things have changed so much by the time they get back. It makes for a frustrating battle — the soldiers are far less effective than the technology they wield.

Another interesting idea is the way the Earth changes. Haldeman’s vision of the Earth is that it grows so crowded that the government begins to encourage homosexuality as the norm. Mandella eventually finds himself commanding a regiment of people who find him the deviant, and even has to rebuff the advances of one of his officers. Humanity continues to change until it is something so different, so alien, that Mandella is forced to join a team of people from his era who set out to colonize a new world.

There is, of course, a surprise in the nature of the war that’s being fought as well. The Taurans are not what they seem, and the premises of the war are not exactly what the military originally claimed. There is a real sense of betrayal at the hands of the military, something that echoes Haldeman’s own experiences in Vietnam, but also the broader theme of any military, from any time, having a secret agenda. Wars are not fought over big ideas, like freedom and safety; they are fought over little things, like wealth and land.

Some see this book as a response to Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, and there are certainly some parallels. Haldeman has always played this connection down. I suspect it was an influence, but not his sole motivation for writing the book. For what it’s worth, The Forever War is a much better book than Starship Troopers. I’m not sure that I feel the same way about the sequels (direct sequel Forever Free and thematic sequel Forever Peace), though. While they’re similar in some ways, they just don’t have the same feel to them that The Forever War does.

There’s a 1988 graphic novel adaptation of this book that’s faithful, but condensed, and Ridley Scott’s working on a 3D film that probably won’t be any good at all. There’s also a parallel short story (“A Seperate War”) and a connecting comic (A New Beginning). But the original is the best, and well worth reading.

GENRE: Hard Science Fiction
STORY: ****
CHARACTERS: ****
CONCEPT: ****
RE-READABILITY: ****

"Lizard Music" by Daniel Manus Pinkwater

Note: Today’s book is also available as a free audiobook for download, read by the author. It’s worth listening to, and great for car trips! Get it here.

Rounding out my trilogy of Pinkwater reviews is a book called Lizard Music. This isn’t to say I’m going to stop reviewing Pinkwater books; it is to say, however, that I’m going to move on to other authors for awhile and come back to Pinkwater books down the road. Plus, Lizard Music is probably one of his best.

The story is about Victor, a twelve-year-old boy who is left home alone when his parents take a vacation and his older sister sneaks out to go camping with her hippie friends. This suits Victor just fine; he’s smart enough to take care of himself, and has plenty of money and TV dinners to get him through solitude. Plus, this means he can watch TV, explore the local city, and go swimming whenever he wants.

When Victor stays up late one night, he sees a band of lizards playing music on his set. He’s pretty sure this isn’t supposed to happen. As the days go by, he sees more weird lizard shows on TV. He also starts seeing lizards everywhere, in connection with all sorts of strange things. He asks a local eccentric known as “The Chicken Man” to help him find the lizards. The two eventually wind up on an island where a large number of friendly, humanoid lizards are living, and Victor has an incredible adventure as he explores their civilization.

There is no villain in this book, and no sense of doom or destiny or anything like that. It’s somewhat of an adventure, somewhat of a coming-of-age story, and somewhat of a hero’s journey all wrapped into one. Victor’s conflict is in understanding who he really is, and why he’s special compared to other people. He begins the story as a normal person who is surrounded by a lot of people who seem crazy. He emerges as someone who is equally as eccentric, but who understands the reasons why someone might be a little different.

When I read this book as a kid, I enjoyed the journey. It didn’t always make a lot of sense to me — there are a lot of dated references to popular culture from the 1970s in the book, particularly in Victor’s obsession with news anchor Walter Cronkite — but I got the gist of what was going on. One of the best running gags in the book is when Victor stays up and watches a movie about pod people (people who have been eaten and replaced by alien plants that look just like them), and reasons that all of the people around him must be pod people as well, because there’s a certain unreality to the way they behave. The lizards confirm his theory, and tell them they’re at war with the pod people. The gag never develops into anything tangible — Pinkwater may have been holding it back for a sequel — but one gets the sense that part of the story’s deeper meaning is that Victor is protecting himself from becoming a pod person by becoming a friend of the lizards. In other words, Victor is giving up the lifestyle of trying to blend in, and taking on the persona of the misfit.

Misfits are really important in Pinkwater books, and I can only assume that his goal in writing books for children was to let them know that being unusual, eccentric, or even crazy is OK, and even preferable to being dull and trying to fit in with the popular kids. Lizard Music is one of those books that really rewards the hero for being curious and willing to accept new ideas… and it challenges the reader to think about the world a little differently as well.

If I have a complaint, it’s that the end of the book is a little hurried, as if Pinkwater meant to spend longer having Victor tour the island, but ran out of time. The Lizards are too nice, and too friendly, and there’s no conflict other than the ticking timer that indicates that Victor will eventually have to leave. There is an interesting little subplot about chickens, but it hatches (hah!) into something fairly unexciting, despite the fact that the lizards themselves are very excited about it.

While this book is intended for children, I’d recommend it for adults as well. The free audio book is a really fantastic listen, and great for a car trip.

GENRE: Magical Realism / Fantasy
STORY: *** 1/2
CHARACTERS: ****
CONCEPT: ****
RE-READABILITY: ****

"Dying Inside" by Robert Silverberg

Do true telepaths exist? And if they did, what would their lives be like? Robert Silverberg tackles this question in Dying Inside, a sci-fi book from 1972 about a middle-aged neurotic Jewish man living in New York City who has had the power his entire life to read minds… but who is finding the power diminishing as he gets older.

David Selig has spent his entire life as a god walking among mortals. By projecting his mind into others, he can see their innermost thoughts. But whereas some might use this power to take advantage of others, Selig squanders it, finding himself bound by a sense of morality that prohibits him from using his gift for more than simple voyeurism. He doesn’t mind using his gift as a trick so that he can seduce a woman or gain a quick insight into others’ experiences, but he never uses it for and major evil… or any major good.

And that’s what makes this book such an interesting read. Silverberg tells the story from Selig’s point of view as he realizes that his gift is finally waning, that he is becoming telepathically impotent, and that his entire life has been a waste. As Selig’s present-day narrative shows the pitiful outcome of his decisions, he reflects back on many periods of his life, and how he was able to use his power to help himself… or hurt himself. There’s the story of a lost love, Kitty, the one person he was unable to read. There’s the story of another telepath, Nyquist, who ultimately betrayed Selig because he lacked morality. There’s the story of an acid trip gone bad that allowed another girlfriend, Toni, to briefly connect with Selig and to see the horror of his soul. There’s the story of Selig’s relationship with his sister, Judith, and the hatred she developed as she realized she had no thoughts that were private from him.

The content of the book is a bit mature — Silverberg tends to write gratuitous sex scenes into his books, but in this case, they actually fit. The story is about a man who can penetrate the minds of others, and the juxtoposition with sexual experiences is interesting and relevant. Sex is one of the few times when Selig feels like his connection with others is a two-way street. It’s also one of the few times when his mental probing proves ineffective, since the intense feelings associated with it can sever the mental bond. At the same time, Selig’s fascination with examining the sexual experiences of others shows how much he’s squandering his gift — he’s little more than a peeping Tom at times, something which defines his character.

The writing is good, and very interesting. It’s definitely one of Silverberg’s best books, and it’s very accessible even to non-science fiction readers. I’d actually say it’s closer in tone to magical realism, since the cause of telepathy is never explained nor justified. Unlike a lot of Silverberg books, this one actually has an ending, though I’m still on the fence as to whether or not it’s satisfying. It’s certainly interesting, if nothing else. You know when you pick up a book called Dying Inside that it’s going to have a dark, melancholy quality about it, and the tragic figure of David Selig is pathetic and unremarkable in the real world, despite his extraordinary gift. Fear prevents him from sharing what he really is with others, and he spends his entire life trying to blend in rather than trying to stand out. It’s sad, but real.

I’ve heard it said that this book is one of the most literary science fiction novels ever written. I’d certainly agree; Silverberg plays with various writing styles to suit the moods of the character, and uses the character’s background as a writer and English major to make allusions to classic works and to justify unusual narrative styles. There are some great lines in the book that play on the pretentiousness of the character. But there’s also a wonderful element of self-deprecation that gives the narrator some plausibility. He sounds like a Jewish man living in New York, and there are times where, in the reading, you can hear his voice, his accent, his inflections. It’s a masterful use of character, which is something you don’t often see in science fiction.

I find that a lot of my science fiction-reading friends aren’t familiar with Robert Silverberg, and that’s a shame. I’ll review several of his books this week for good measure. I had the good fortune of working with him on a graphic adaptation of one of his novellas, and I have enormous respect for him. He’s written novels for 55 years and is still putting out new work in his advanced years. He’s really fallen off the map as far as contemporary readers go, but he’s still well-known among sci-fi writers for his strong storytelling ability.

GENRE: Magical Realism / Sci-Fi
STORY: ****
CHARACTERS: ****
CONCEPT: ****
RE-READABILITY: ****