"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.

Upgrade Complete by Armor Games

In the realm of video gaming, it’s easy to get obsessed with the idea of “upgrading”. In fact, many great games are built around the concept of “play just a little further, and you can make your guys that much better and cooler…”. A lot of times, these upgrade experiences aren’t that exciting, especially when you’re working towards upgrades like “alternate costume colors” or “bad guys wearing funny hats” or the dreaded “extended credit sequence”.

So, I suppose it was inevitable that someone would go out and make a game where upgrading is the actual focus. Armor Games’s Upgrade Complete! is a free, flash-based game that’s all about upgrading to your heart’s content. The game starts off by telling you you need to upgrade so you can have a pre-loader. Then, you have to upgrade to get menu buttons, a logo, copyright information, a menu background, a progress bar, and so forth.

The actual game itself is a simple little Galaga-style shooter where you move your shift left or right and blast everything on screen. You start out with one gun, no sound effects and some Atari 2600-style graphics. But, of course, all of these things can be upgraded! You can put your money into improving your ship’s gun, but you can also add other weapons and useful components (you can have 12 modules in all) to make the game a little easier. There are 20 waves of enemy ships to blow up, but you never are actually penalized for losing. In fact, replaying levels over and over until you can earn enough money to upgrade your ship is a pretty sound strategy.

It only takes about 15 minutes to get your ship up to the point that it’s maxed out, and one of the achievements you can earn essentially says, “Oh yeah, there’s a game, isn’t there?” and rewards you for actually bothering to finish wave 20. Chances are good you’ll still be upgrading even after finishing that last wave — after all, you’ll still want to upgrade the graphics, the music, the logo, the copyright information, and the game’s ending.

Upgrade Complete!, along with another Armor Games titles called Achievement Unlocked (where you find yourself unlocking ridiculous achievements at a rapid pace), represent something you don’t see often in gaming — social criticism of game culture. It’s fun to be able to play some simple little games that mock both gamers and developers for being too focused on the mechanics of gaming and not enough on the gameplay itself. What’s more, since they’re flash-based, you don’t need any special hardware to give them a try.

Play Upgrade Complete! v. 1.5 on Newgrounds

Play Achievement Unlocked on Newgrounds

"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.

'Gattaca' written and directed by Andrew Niccol

I’ve been meaning to watch Gattaca for awhile now, but never gotten around to it for some reason. I’d heard it was a well-constructed science fiction film (it’s technically part of the “biopunk” subgenre), but I’ve been burned by so many sci-fi films that I really didn’t want to be let down by this one. Fortunately, it’s available on Netflix Instant Watch, and since I was in the mood to watch a movie last night, I finally gave it a go.

I’m glad I did. Gattaca was a fun experience, and a really well-crafted science fiction piece. I’d say it fits more in the vein of dystopian satire (like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World or George Orwell’s 1984) than anything else, but it does have many biopunk elements about it.

In the world of Gattaca, genetic manipulation has resulted in an odd sort of fatalism — the moment you’re born, you are told what your probabilities for death are. It’s much safer, and much more socially beneficial, to create children through a lab, where the best parts of the mother and father can be combined and the genetic deficiencies can be eliminated. The main character, Vincent, is born with a probability of heart failure by the time he’s 30. His parents have a younger brother, Anton, who is designed to be superior to Vincent in every way. Vincent grows up in a society where there is a lot of predjudice against him for being a natural birth, and he is told that he’ll never be able to achieve his true dream: to be an astronaut. But Vincent doesn’t accept his fate, and when he realizes that he is capable of beating his brother in a swimming race by sheer determination and will, he leaves his family and finds his way into Gattaca, the mission control center for space shuttle launches.

Vincent starts off as a janitor, but eventually finds a way to infiltrate the organization. Gattaca conducts regular urine, blood and hair follicle tests to ensure that its people are legitimate — the best and the brightest, not genetic inferiors. Vincent’s way around this is to use a “borrowed ladder” – he partners with a man named Jerome who is genetically superior, but who has lost the use of his legs in an accident. (In this world, invalids are also looked down upon, particularly when they’re supposed to be genetically superior.) Vincent’s job is to pretend to be Jerome so he can become a navigator aboard a mission to the moon of Titan. Jermoe agrees to supply Vincent with all the genetic material needed to pull off the ruse in exchange for a cut of Vincent’s salary.

Unfortunately, a week before Vincent’s mission is scheduled to take off, a murder occurs, and a police sweep finds an eyelash that links him to the crime. His ruse becomes much  more tense as the police begin more aggressive DNA sweeps, and Vincent knows it’s only a matter of time before he’ll be discovered. All he has to do is make it one more week until his shuttle takes off, and nothing will matter anymore. But unfortunately, one of the detectives has a suspicion about what’s really going on… and he’s determined to bring Vincent to justice, even if Vincent didn’t commit the actual murder.

Gattaca is really more of a cautionary tale than a futurist film, and while the sterile, harsh world of the film seems believable enough while you’re watching it, the idea of a society obsessed with genetic probabilities is a little far-fetched. But the idea of the film — that human achievement is greater than any probability determined by scientific understanding — is profound, and the way the film is constructed makes for an interesting series of revelations about the characters.

One of the more interesting things going on in the background involves a woman, Irene, who has the same heart condition that Vincent does, but in a much milder form. This condition doesn’t proclude her from working at Gattaca, but it does prevent her from going into space, no matter how capable she may be. Irene is so mired in the probabilities of death that she believes them. Once she learns what Vincent is, her entire world opens up to a new range of possibilities.

This film was written and directed by Andrew Niccol, and it’s the only one he’s done that’s been what I would call “hard sci-fi.” His follow-up film, The Truman Show, was also very good, though much softer and less realistic. S1m0ne, a movie about a film producer who creates a complete digital film star, was really lacking in plot development. I never got around to seeing Lord of War or The Terminal, though I’m told it neither has any hint of science fiction. I’m hoping Niccol delivers another film like Gattaca down the road — it’s one of the most consistent hard science fiction films I’ve ever seen, and the fact that it’s not based on a book or cribbed from another film makes it all the more appealing.

Sean Recommends: If you have Netflix, watch it instantly. It’s worth the 105 minutes you’ll put into it. If not, rent it or buy it on Amazon for a few bucks. It’s worth it.

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.

"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: ****