Rossum's Universal Robots

R.U.R
© 1920 Karel Capek
120 pages

ALQUIST: . Has Nana got a prayer book?
HELENA Yes, a big thick one.
ALQUIST And has it got prayers for various occasions? Against thunderstorms? Against illness?
HELENA Against temptations, against floods!––
ALQUIST But not against progress?
HELENA I don't think so.
ALQUIST That's a pity.



Introducing....the robots! Literally.  This 1920 play  by Karel Capek  introduced the term into English, in a story about manufactured people who revolt against their masters. The play opens with the arrival of the President's daughter to a remote island, the manufacturing base and headquarters of Rossum's Universal Robots. These robots are not mechanical mock-ups of human beings, but rather living creatures  whose tissue is chemically manufactured. The creatures themselves are 'simplified', their insides rearranged or reduced for maximum efficiency, and all of the messy human stuff -- pleasure,  ambition, et -- taken out. All that remains is a super-strong body with an obsessive interest in work -- at least, at first.   What began as an experiment from a pair of mad scientists is completely taking over the global workforce, reducing the price of goods to pennies. The dream of the RUR industrialist, "Domin", is to liberate mankind from slavery to itself.   He dreams of a future where humans spend their days painting and playing the lyre or lolling about in the sun, while all of their needs are taken care of by robots.  Of course, there will be some unpleasantness first. What he doesn't reckon with is that his own engineers' own curiosity will mean not just unpleasantness, but the extinction of both humans and robots.

"R.U.R". may seem like a period piece given its steamboats, steam locomotives, and telegraphs, but those are mere props.  The story irself -- the slow death of humanity via dependence on robots --  is one we are perfectly capable of seeing come to fruition.  We won't be executed by brigades of rifle-toting androids, no, but RUR demonstrates another kind of death.  The play takes place over a decade, in which robots take over so much labor and service that humans stop living. They exist, but they're no longer working, no longer struggling for the future; most people do not even have children. Even war has become a robotic domain, as armies of drones are used to invade countries and butcher people (once it's destroyed the opposing army of drones, of course).   Consider our own lives; every passing year brings more automation, and those who live beyond just the moment may wonder what will be the result. How  will governments cope with rising unemployment -- and will we reach a point where the majority of people have nothing to do? And even if people's material needs are met (in a Player Piano scenario, with sustaining welfare for the unemployed masses), how  will society absorb their energy, their itching will to be doing SOMETHING? Regardless of the hopes of optimists, not everyone wants to spend their time reading and painting and playing the lyre. Some people want to build, to compete, to do something mighty....but what will be left?

Though a short read, RUR remains thought provoking close to a century after its publication.

The Martian Chronicles

The Martian Chronicles

© 1950 Ray Bradbury

222 pages

As the 1940s began giving way to the 1950s, Ray Bradbury began penning a series of stories about the future human exploration of Mars -- stories that he thought of as fantasy in his letters, but which were called science fiction by everyone else. The stories were re-published as an integrated novel, the result is more of a mosaic than a straightforward tale.

Th Chronicles do not present a rosy, optimistic view of Mars exploration -- or of the future in general. Although arriving on Mars safely is a considerable challenge for the Earthmen, eventually Earth triumphs in the same way it survived a Martian invasion in H.G. Wells' earlier work, and the same way Europeans came to posess a widowed continent. One of Bradbury's characters, Spender, could be an Ed Abbey in space -- gazing at the ancient beauty of Mars, of the sad ruins of a once-great civilization -- and lamenting that one day settler would arrive like locusts and devour all of this, plonking down hot dog stands. "We have a way of ruining big, beautiful things," he says, shortly before going on a shooting spree against those who would chuck wine bottles into the pristine Martian canals. Mars is settled, and emptied, as Earth's cold war finally waxes hot and all colonists are called home to fight -- an odd and tragic development, considering the war's nuclear nature.

There's more to the Chronicles than environmental concerns and nuclear dread, however. In another story, "Usher II", Bradbury introduces a theme later expanded in "Fahrenheit 451", when a man builds a house of horrors inspired by the works of Edgar Allen Poe. The house is a tower of rebellion, for on Earth all works of fantasy and politics were long burned and their ashes buried, in the hopes of burning and burying imagination and discontent with them. The political police catch up to the house's architect, but he invites them to tour the house just once before they burn it. The vengeance then wreaked through recreations of Poe's stories testifies to a delicious anti-authoritarianism, a contempt for those who would control the lives of others for them. Many people came to Mars to escape conformity, bureaucracy, the sterile life -- but found it came following after them, like the Alliance in Firefly.

And yet there is more to this little volume of stories. Needless to say, after spending an evening with it, I now know why it's held in such high regard.

Reads to ...er, Reels: War of the Worlds

"...coming this way, about twenty yards from my ri—"

Tonight I turned off the lights and put on a recording of Orson Welles' 1938 radio dramatization of H.G. Wells' (confusing, that) The War of the Worlds.  According to a popular urban myth,  the format of this radio-play  so confused and alarmed the listening audience that they began running amok, wandering into the country and firing guns at anything suspicious-like.  While the extent of that panic is greatly exaggerated,  having experienced the play I can appreciate why people might believe the myth.  After an introduction which identifies the novel as its inspiration, the play begins as a period music broadcast which is interrupted periodically by news accounts of strange activity on Mars, then some sort of impact in New Jersey, and then -- by golly -- the dots are connected.  The interruptions are first routine and annoying (I was rather enjoying "Stardust", though the version wasn't close to Glenn Miller's)  and then increasingly panicked.  The scene in which an on-site reporter arrives at the first impact and witnesses the cylinder begin to open are especially well done, and later we seem to hear a man killed by the Heat Ray on air.   Broadcast interruptions are frequent, as the fictional network officials scramble to keep accurate reporting even as the affair widens. By the time we reach an assumed-dead scientist commenting in a "it's the world as we know it" fashion, musing over the events of the last several days, the radio-play status of the broadcast is much more obvious. The recording ends with Orson Welles reminding readers that this was a Halloween play, and please do not run amok.  I don't know how the panic myth started, but I certainly enjoyed listening to the play and experiencing an odd piece of American history.  You can find copies on YouTube, of course.

The Invisible Man

The Invisible Man
© 1897 H,G, Wells
149 pages

The Invisible Man opens with the arrival of a Mysterious Stranger to a country inn. He is covered from head to toe, and remains so even after he takes a room. The townsfolk don't know what to make of the irritable visitor who insists on wearing gloves, a hat, and goggles indoors, and peevishness only intensifies their curiosity. That, and the fact that his luggage consisted of a small library and an enormous set of chemical apparatus.  The more time he spends with them the more suspicious he seems, and those who keep trying to get a feel for the man notice...curiosities. For instance, once his sleeve seemed to be empty, yet it moved in a way that would be impossible for an amputee's.  Driven to frustration by their constant prodding, the visitor reveals that he is, in fact, an Invisible Man. From there, the plot is one of spectacle, siege, and violence as the Man lashes out in desperation. The other villages think the people in the first hamlet are lunatics, but soon the "madness" spreads as he moves. His every encounter results in contemptuous treatment of the terrified people he meets, followed  by attempts to subdue people with inexplicable force. It turns out that the English winter is not the best time to embark on an experiment in invisibility.  Invisible he may be, but he still still needs clothing and food -- and both expose him.   Eventually the Man is cornered when he attempts to enlist the help of a university colleague. That man, Kemp, listens to his story but can't help but notice that the Invisible Man seems to be the one instigating all of the trouble. He is especially bothered by the Man's account of nicking a man's goods....from his very house. This is England, you transparent lout, don't you know a man's home is his castle?  When the Man reveals that he wants to inflict a profitable Reign of Terror on England, that's the last straw.  A trap is sprung, the man is caught, and when he dies the electro-chemical process he exposed himself to wears off to reveal him.  That's that.

The Invisible Man is curious, as compared to the other Wells novels I've read. It drops the reader right into the middle of the character's story, and doesn't consist of any thoughtful narration. In recapping the story, I've attempted to be as sympathetic as I can, attempting to frame him as a man driven to desperation by the miserable condition he inadvertently cast himself into.  It's a bit of a stretch, though, because the Invisible Man is a grump from page one, as though the invisibility simply escalated his own disdain and short temper. His intelligence is all technical; he doesn't have the least bit of tact or strategy in his head.  A Reign of Terror in England? Sounds awfully French.   I don't know if Wells was aware of the old Greek story about a ring that makes the wearer invisible and quickly immoral, but the lesson certainly applies to our fellow here.

This is a fast story, with the feel of horror.. The Invisible Man is more a monster to be feared than a man to be awed by or pitied.

2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey
© 1986 Arthur C. Clark, Stanley Kubrick
316 pgs

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, mankind makes an extraordinary discovery: unmistakable evidence of life outside the environs of Earth. An object on the moon makes plain the fact that three million years ago, extraordinary and intelligent creatures were present…but who they were, and what their interest or relationship was with Earth, is a mystery with clues as far removed as Saturn. 2001: A Space Odyssey, is both the story of a physical journey through the Solar System in search of answers, and a fatalistic view of mankind’s evolution.

Surely there is a word for completely misinterpreting the plot of a story based on pop culture references. It would apply to my experience with 2001, which was far as I was concerned was wholly about an astronaut named Dave’s struggle with the sentient artificial intelligence running his ship – and running amok. As it turns out, HAL-9000 is dispatched in one chapter here, and the story is mostly about mankind’s progress toward…oblivion? Clark combines technological optimism and Cold War fatalism in such a way that the ending really threw me. Admittedly, I was poised to be thrown: a sequence in which the main character is taken on a journey through the Cosmos by a greater lifeform reminded me of similar voyages in Contact and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Suffice it to say, in 2001 the main character does not return to Earth with a transcendental view of the universe to share with his fellows for their betterment. It’s more like the ending to Beneath the Planet of the Apes; though considering that the book begins with ape-men learning to use tools to smack around their neighbors, I suppose it’s appropriate.

2001 is dated in its optimistic predictions about our establishing sizable, stable outposts on Mars and the Moon. There’s not a lot of science actually mentioned, though, so once one ignores the date, anachronisms almost cease. (Okay, so the Soviet Union isn't still around, and 'tablets' are around a few years before their time...) As an adventure set in space, it’s great fun, I knew what was coming with HAL, and even so the so realization by Dave that his computer was listening and moving against him succeeded. While there’s not a lot of hard science, 2001 does touch on a few heady topics, like the volatility of intelligence; considering the difficulties in managing human-made AI, the lead characters how we can reasonably expect to communicate with completely foreign intelligences. As unexpectedly grim as the ending was, I do appreciate Clarke for hinting that superior intelligence does not necessarily bring with it a “more evolved sensibility”. Naturally, I share Carl Sagan’s hope that if there are other intelligences out there, those with powers greater than ours, that their survival past ‘technological adolescence’ indicates they have their CRUSH KILL DESTROY instincts in check. That doesn't mean they would recognize us as beings whose life merits respect, though. We might be as incidental to them as flies upon an interstellar windshield.

Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers
© 1959 Robert Heinlein
263 pages

The worlds of the Terran Federation are under constant assault by the malicious Bugs, whose hideousness drives dogs insane and who don’t even have the decency to build their civilization out of buildings that can be blown apart:  the swarming arachnoids have to be dug out of the ground.   Juan Rico didn’t join the military to save truth, justice, and the Terran way of life, however; humankind was largely at peace when he took his oath. Instead, he joined because his best friend did, and because the school  hottie was signing up to become a pilot. Juan, or Johnny, didn’t get to be a pilot, though; that program prefers women’s faster reflexes.Johnny wound up in the Mobile Infantry,  part of a literal killing machine. During his  basic training, however,  a Bug attack completely destroyed Buenos Aires, and it’s up to Johnny and his follow boots to take the war to the enemy.  Starship Troopers is half political philosophy, a third speculation on future warfare, and a fifth wartime action plot.  The best known of Robert Heinlein’s works, alongside Stranger in a Strange Land,  Starship Troopers’s fame stems from its easy-to-loathe insectoid menace and its controversial politics; it well deserves its classic status.

Starship Troopers opens with images of future spaceborne wars, though space is something traveled through, not the battlefield itself; there are no capital ship duels here, only the paratrooper-like deployment and operations of Johnny and the rest of Terra’s finest.  If mobile infantry brings to mind foot soldiers jumping from trucks and riding through the countryside, cast that out of your mind; an M.I is one man in an armored suit, weighing tons  but powered and as responsive to the slightest movement that it might as well be skinned. The suit allows every trained soldier to be a one-man army, making the tanks of ancient days look like pushovers. Every M.I. is worth more than a thousand of the enemy, and that’s no hyperbole.

            But Starship Troopers isn’t chiefly about the Bug War or how sophisticated electronics  and space will alter combat. Throughout the book, largely through reminiscences of his training days, Rico’s understanding of why he’s fighting develops, laying before readers a political philosophy which is the basis for the book's 'controversial' status. In the Federation, the voting franchise is limited to those who have paid their dues in the form of Federal Service, people who have proven that they have characters capable of engaging in self-sacrifice for the good of the nation; people whose sense of duty will keep them sober when they exercise the vote, and mitigate corruption as far as possible. Starship Troopers is paean to the highest ideals of republican soldiery, drawing on classical history, from Greece through Rome; if you've ever read Once an Eagle, it's rather like that. The main argument of Troopers is that politics requires virtue, and for Heinlein, the sacrifice required in military service is the best way of sussing out the virtuous.  The military isn't the meter by which society is run; in fact, those who apply to do their service are actively discouraged and given plenty of opportunities for second thoughts once they've begun.  Other elements of Heinlein's society which have been criticized, like the use of violence as discipline, aren't an example of the military governing civilian life; that's simply the way Heinlein thinks children ought to be raised and how criminals ought to be deal with, and are separate arguments.  The most objectionable element of the worldview developed here is the author's contention that man doesn't have a moral instinct. He views humanity as a wild animal that has to be civilized through culture every step of the way, but if we had no moral instincts such inculcation could not possibly take.

Although I started this book prepared to see in it a glorification of war and authority, it is far more thoughtful than that. The tech speculation is fascinating for a work written in 1959, though the closest we've come to realizing  any of his ideas is helmets with HUD displays, or perhaps remotely-controlled robots.  (In Heinlein's world, the powered suits are controlled with radio signals.)  This is definitely a worthy read.

The Early Asimov

The Early Asimov, or, Eleven Years of Trying
© 1972 Isaac Asimov
400-500 pages

Long-time readers know of my enormous affection for the good doctor Asimov; imagine my delight in finding this anthology of over two dozen of his earlier and previously uncollected works, from his first eleven years as an author. These were stories written in the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s, when young Asimov worked in a candy store to pay for college, later doing civilian work for the army before being drafted. It's a splendid collection for an Asimov fan like myself. Although the stories are rougher than one would expect (judging by his usual standard), seeing him write outside the conventions established by his adult self is fascinating. Aliens abound, for one thing: it's a rare story in this collection which doesn't see Earthmen fighting against wicked Martians, or putting off Venusian rebellions. Asimov has maintained in other works that he disliked the antagonistic relationship editors demanded to exist between humans and aliens, so he established his own human-only universe. His generous use of alien life here hints at the stories' lack of scientific polish; although simple datedness is easy to understand, often Asimov should have known better. Even the science of his day ruled out the possibility of extant life on Mars, and he acknowledges this in his extensive commentary, which knits the book together and makes it semi-autobiographical. The collection also includes his legendary essay, "The Endochronic Properties of Sublimated Thiotimoline", which satirized the language of academic articles.

It is available in either a three-volume set, or this complete edition.

A Journey to the Center of the Earth

A Journey to the Center of the Earth
© 1864 Jules Verne
291 pages

"Is the Master out of his mind?" she asked me.
I nodded.
"And he's taking you with him?"
I nodded again.
"Where?" she asked.
I pointed towards the center of the Earth.
"Into the cellar?" exclaimed the old servant.
"No," I said. "Further down than that."
p. 47

A forgotten piece of parchment in an ancient book leads an eccentric professor and his longsuffering and ever-perplexed nephew on a journey across the wastes of Iceland and into the bowels of a volcano, where they attempt to find a path to the very center of the Earth.  Young Axel really had no stomach for the adventure of a lifetime his uncle (Professor Otto von Lidenbrock) set them on; he would have much rather stayed home and wooed fair Grauben, whom he expected to marry. As incautious as Axel was, he couldnt't escape his uncle's passion: the man's zeal spurs them ever deeper into the earth where they discover an extraordinary underground sea populated by creatures which have been extinct on the surface for millions of years.

I have dim memories of reading this as a child, and most of them involve the 'lost world' that the Lidenbrocks stumble upon, wonderfully illustrated in the children's version I owned. Having been spoiled on the climax, I paid more attention to the journey. Verne published this in 1864, when geology was in its infancy. Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology, which introduced the 19th century to the idea that the Earth is far older than most humans suspected, was only thirty years old at this point -- and the modern understanding of plate tectonics was a century away! As Axel and his uncle creep through the Earth's interior,  Axel's fear and trepediation are often erased by the wonder of what he's seeing buried in the rocks; eons pass with every footfall.  Although the book is badly dated by this point -- Lidenbrock's understanding of the natural world seems to have one foot in mythology, and the theory of 'central heat' which he takes pleasure in refuting  is no longer uncertain --  for Verne's original readers, this book would have an eye-opening voyage into natural history, and an introduction to the study of the Earth. The wonders of the  subterranean world are just icing on the cake.

While I'd expected an intriguing lecture-adventure (and wasn't disappointed), the characterazation of Axel and the professor took me by surprise. I don't recall finding either so entertaining in my youth: Axel in particular has  a tendency to be over dramatic when describing what will happen to them, going on for whole paragraphs in descriptive, scientifically-specific prose. He's a 19th-century C-3PO.

A Journey to the Center of the Earth doesn't rival Around the World in 80 Days or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for entertainment value, but it's still a fairly enjoyable look at what geology was like in its early days.

The Currents of Space

The Currents of Space
© 1952 Isaac Asimov
From Triangle (pp. 1-172). © 1952.

"Frightened people can be very dangerous, my Lady. They can't be counted on to act sensibly."
"Then why do you keep them frightened?"

An entire planet is doomed, and only one man knows enough to care. Pity he's been kidnapped, subjected to a mental probe that cost him his mind, and left in the middle of nowhere to be looked after only by peasants suspicious of the unknown. The farms of Florina aren't quite the middle of nowhere, however: they're the only place in all the galaxy which can produce the miracle fabric 'kyrt',  known for its beauty and versatility, and worn by the elite of the cosmos. Florina's fields have made their conquerors -- the planet of Sark -- immensely rich, and powerful enough to keep Sark free from being annexed by the Trantorian Empire.  But the planet in peril is in fact Florina, and if it goes so does Sark's power -- and the Galaxy belongs to Trantor.  Who attacked this man, and why? What kind of danger could threaten an entire planet? Thus begins a fantastic political mystery and the last novel in the Empire 'trilogy'.

Like The Stars like Dust, Currents of Space is a political-mystery thriller with a futuristic setting. The science fiction elements take a backseat to the puzzle of Rik and Florina's alleged doom and the depiction of Florina and Sark's society.  Their relationship is baldly exploitative: the Florinians generate all of the wealth, but it is stolen by Sark -- and Sark keeps the Florinians impoverished and uneducated, staving off rebellion through means of superior force. If the Florinians could gain outside assistance -- say, from Trantor -- they might be able to break the yoke of their masters.  Given how keenly Trantor would be interested in breaking Sark,  it's a safe assumption they have a part to play in the sinister plots which are afoot. Once the action erupts, the plot advances at breakneck speed over the bodies of anyone who gets in the main characters' way, and it doesn't stop until a revelation in the final pages which surprised me.   I started reading this to take a break from the oddness of Robert Heinlin's The Cat Who Walked through Walls, and it may just be my favorite Empire novel.


I have no idea who this woman is supposed to be, but it convinces me that book covers are an essential part of vintage SF's charm.

The Stars like Dust

The Stars like Dust (originally titled as The Rebellious Stars)
© 1951 Isaac Asimov
From Triangle, pp. 349 - 516. © 1952

Only a few days before his graduation from the University of Earth, Biron Farril awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of his room clicking happily to itself -- clicking with radiation. No university prank, this seemed more an attack on his life, an attempt to unite Biron with his recently executed father.  And so he flees Earth to seek sanctuary in Rhodia, to ask protection from a friend of his father's. So begins a story of politics, rebellion, and ambition with more plot twists than there are stars in the sky.

Though classified in Asimov's empire series,  this story appears to have been set rather early: humanity has settled a little over a thousand worlds, and while one of those worlds -- the aptly named Tyrann -- has established a fifty-planet sphere of influence for itself, the Empire proper is never mentioned, nor is Trantor.    The focus is instead on the dominion of the Tyranni, who repress scientific advancement in the worlds they control to restrict the possibility of rebellion. Still,  tyranny does not sit well with human beings: there is a conspiracy, and in fleeing Earth Biron has stumbled upon a galactic chessboard to be used by the Tyranni and the rebels-in-waiting, each manipulating him for their own ends. His greatest hope is to find a rumored rebellion world in the Horsehead Nebula, blessedly free from any politics except staunch resistance to the tyrants.

Although Asimov makes passing reference to technology -- ships Jumping through hyperspace, devices which project images into the mind -- the emphasis here is on political mystery, and it kept me thoroughly entertained though I grew weary of the rug constantly being pulled out from under me. The Second Foundation-like ending was a bit of a surprise, but the novel's length shortened the number of possible resolutions. The last words of the novel reminded me a bit of Star Trek's bewildering episode "The Omega Glory".  As with seeing that episode for the first time, I wasn't sure if I found it amusing or bizarrely inspiring or not.

I fully intend to finish the Empire trilogy this year, so I'll probably be reading Currents in Space sometime soon.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
© 1870 Jules Verne
382 pages

 Scarcely a year after the end of the American Civil War, Professor Pierre Aronnax of the Museum of Natural History in Paris is  preparing to return to his native France following the conclusion of some research when he learns that the  Abraham Lincoln, a fast frigate, is about to set forth on a mission to track down and destroy a mysterious sea monster that has been plaguing seagoing traffic for several months. Aronnax -- author of several books on the life of the oceans -- sees the mission as the opportunity to identify and study the fascinating creature, which he believes must be a narwhal of some previous unknown type.  This perception changes when the Abraham Lincoln discovers the beast to be made of iron:  Aronnax's narwhal is a submarine!  The frigate is swiftly destroyed, but Aronnax, his servant, and a Canadian fisherman find refuge aboard the strange machine. The captain of this vessel, a nationless eccentric billionaire who identifies himself as 'Nemo', informs them that although he will extend to them every courtesy of a guest, no one who boards his Nautilus is permitted to leave. Professor Aronnax is thus given the opportunity to study the world's oceans up close and in an unbelievable vessel.

So begins an adventure at sea and a fascinating bit of science fiction. As Nemo and Aronnax sail through the world's seas, they explore underwater forests and submerged volcanoes and fight off creatures of the deep -- all of which are described in great detail. When I first read a children's version of this book, the Nautilus seemed to me a version of the Enterprise, underwater. It had a museum, a library, and at least one viewing gallery in which the crew and (accidental) passengers were separated from the ocean depths and all the wonder they contained by a few inches of glass. As an adult, I find the book all the more fascinating given its time. Nemo's machine needs to surface every five days to replenish its air tanks, but otherwise gains all it needs from the sea itself. It moves at fifty knots, which far surpasses the first US nuclear-powered submarine (the USS Nautilus), and other modern ships, like the USS Abraham Lincoln and even  destroyers like the USS Bainbridge.  Verne's imagination is astounding: the submarines of his days were primitive things, mostly wooden and useful only for drowning their crews.  What powers this amazing ship is Electricity. I took this for granted, but Aronnax is infatuated by the idea -- and well he should be, for the electric dynamos of 1866-1870 were hardly worthy of the name. Not for another decade or two would electricity begin to used in lighting and electric motors. To Verne, electricity is a thing of the future, and its capacity is boundless. It is the source of infinite energy, and he uses it as energetically as Isaac Asimov used 'atomic energy' in the Foundation series. 

20,000 Leagues incorporates more science and technical explanation than any other science book I've yet read, and I can only imagine how riveted 1870's audiences were by his explanations of the Nautilius' electric engine, and his descriptions of what the waters of Earth contain and might contain. I kept wanting to put the book down and watch David Attenborough's Blue Planet, so catching was Aronnax's joy at seeing whales, kelp forests, coral reefs,  underwater tunnels through the earth, lost ships and sunken cities.  Leagues isn't quite as readable as Around the World in 80 Days, and I don't quite know why. The abundance of scientific and technical descriptions contributes, but the translator approached the book knowing it was known for troublesome translations and so I must assume he would have earnest on making the book readable.  Even so, there are some odd turns of phrase: at one point, Ned Land laughs while moving his jaws up and down 'very significantly'.  I think this was because he was teasing someone about eating him. (The characters' conversations about cannibalism were some of the more humorous passages of the book, in part because they read so strangely.)

20,000 Leagues under the Sea deserves to be read again and again, combining natural wonder with the story of a mysterious man who built a superior machine. While story is interesting of itself, considering its optimism and Verne's imagination in historical context made it most impressive. His Nautilus is a superior construct of the mind, making today's cramped vessels still seem primitive by comparison. 

The War of the Worlds

The War of the Worlds
© 1898 H.G. Wells
from The War of the Worlds with The Time Machine and Selected Short Stories, collected 1963.
303 pages

"Don't run! We are your friends!"

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter.

It is the late eighteen-hundreds, the high-water mark of western civilization. Western man and his science are ascendant, triumphant:  while the old empires of the east wither and decay, the virile west takes dominion of the world, uniting it with iron rails and ships belching steam. The earth surrenders her bounty to the miners, and in the cities -- in which people gather in ever-increasing numbers -- towers of steel climb into the skies, rivaling the trees from which we sprang so long ago.  But far away, lurking in the cold of space, lies another civilization, one which sees in the flourishing Earth new life for its own people -- and salvation from its dying world. Like the the Trojans of legend, they have come to our own Italy seeking to establish a new home for themselves -- and they care little for its current occupants.

The narrator of this work, an unnamed intellectual who is trained in comparative biology but is well-versed in all manner of sciences and technology, was there the night the first cylinder arrived. It crashed not two miles from his home, and he regarded these unannounced visitors with wonder, curiosity, and even sympathy at first -- hoping as the cylinder cooled and began to open that the brave men inside had survived their journey all right. Never does it occur to our guide that these visitors come to Earth as the Puritans came to the Americans -- for gold, god, and glory.  Even when the heat-ray vaporizes the fascinated crowds,  the survivors cling to the hope that there's been a misunderstanding.  Every night that passes brings with it a new cylinder, and from the landing sites rise terrifying machines that visit death on anyone and anything that they approach. The crowds were first scattered by the heat-ray, but when the Martians' advance is countered by artillery and iron-clads the otherworldly machines begin belching black smoke of their own -- visiting the area around them with clouds of noxious gas that mitigate any thoughts of resistance.

They march toward London, and civilization flees from them, leaving behind towns in flames and thousands dead. A great mass of humanity routs southward, but our own guide through this harrowing time is trapped  in a partially-destroyed home. The man who had enjoyed a quiet evening chatting with his wife over wine, followed by a session at the typewriter discussing civilization's moral progress is reduced to hiding in rubble, scurrying from ditch to bush and eating anything he can find while surrounded by the ruins of his old world and wondering what is yet to come. Will men take to the sewers, begin life anew while the Martians?  But this is not to be -- for humanity's greatest weapon is its heritage, having overcome generations of diseases that the Martians are utterly unprepared for.

War of the Worlds is a fascinating book; when doing research for my various WW1 papers I learned of the genre of  "invasion literature"*, which became popular in the late 1800s following Prussia's swift technological victory over the French Empire in 1871. Fantasizing about how technological advances like balloons and airplanes could render a nation helpless in a matter of days was quite popular for a time, and though I am not familiar with the history of science fiction,  I wouldn't be surprised if Worlds grew out of that and the increasing interest in Mars and other close astronomical bodies.  The devastation visited on civilian populations and the use of poison gas predicts some of the ravages of the Great War.

Wells is an effective writer, taking the reader through our guide's wonder,  fear, terror, and joy. The guide is ideal for me: I like idealistic intellectuals like our unnamed host, who takes pleasure in the pursuit of knowledge. His status as an intellectual allows him to analyze the aliens' biology, their machines, and what their world may be like -- and his well-rounded education makes the epilogue's musing predictions fascinating.    War of the Worlds is very much a classic, enjoyable though dated: the vastness of space probably insulates us against alien invasions, and I snorted when Wells mentioned that the Martians had effected a landing on Venus. Knowledge gained throughout the 20th century indicates that Venus is as inhospitable as it gets.

Good reading for those interested in a harrowing adventure, or a peek into classic science fiction.  If you enjoy Wells or want to own some of his works, this particular edition seems like a good investment. It gathers two classics along with a few short stories I've not yet read but intend to.  The publishers are Platt & Munk, a division of Grosset and Dunlap.  ISBN: 0-448-41106-7. The cover has a retro feel, and the introduction refers to Wells' work as "scientific romance", which I find endearingly quaint.


* Walter J. Boyne's The Influence of Air Power Upon History shows that invasion literature was not just the stuff of fiction, but a concern to military strategists.

The Complete Robot

The Complete Robot
© 1982 Isaac Asimov
688 pages

A boom in electronic engineering followed World War 2, one that led to consumer televisions, the first computers, and a wide variety of other electricity-using gadgets. As people looked more toward the future, they conceived of mechanical men: these robots often ran amok in the style of Frankenstein's monster. Isaac Asimov thought this silly: robots were tools explicitly designed by intelligent people. It made no sense for them to run amok. He subsequently developed in full the Three Laws of Robotics, and later wrote a host of stories and novels based on them.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Asimov used his stories to explore how humans might use robots to better the human condition, but he also explored questions of intelligence, creativity, sentience, and prejudice. He coined the phrase robotics and his body of work subsequently left various marks on our culture: the android Lieutenant Commander Data of Star Trek possesses one of Asimov's "positronic brains", for instance. The Complete Robot collects just over thirty of his short stories in this theme, written throughout the fifties, sixties, and seventies. Because other robot stories and essays followed it, its name has not remained accurate: still, the book constitutes the sizable bulk of his robot short fiction, including the Susan Calvin stories and classics like "Robbie".

The stories vary slightly in setting, but cover the latter half of the 20th century and human history throughout the 21st, until the dawn of hyperdrives that allow for interstellar travel. Most of the stories share a same canon: at some point in the late 20th or early 21st century,  the many political entities on Earth unite under a weak confederation. Essential parts of the economic (agriculture, for instance) are planned, and crucial to the planning are large computers. These globe-monitoring computing machines in the style of UNIVAC may be subsidiaries to Multivac -- a massive supercomputer at least the size of a building. Several stories here concern Multivac, the machine that bears all the cares of humanity upon its transistor- and vacuum-tube employing shoulders.

Robots in the style of Commander Data come later: while designed to emulate human beings in essential form and size, they exist chiefly for industrial work or for the amusement of wealthy individuals. The people of Earth later react against the employment of robots in this way, relegating them to maintaining space posts in a dozen or so of the stories here. Three stories follow Mike Donovan and Gregory Powell, two quality-assurance technicians in the employ of US Robots and Mechanical Men, as they observe the latest robot models at work, "manning" the stations that beam intense sunlight to Earth, powering its electric grid. Later on, robots nearly vanish from Earth history altogether: in the Empire age, only humans who have left Earth to colonize other worlds use robots. Little of the Empire age is seen here, though -- only its prelude in a short story about detectives Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw, the latter being what we call today an android.

Asimov's stories are as ever simple and charming. They bear the mark of the fifties and sixties, not only in their portrayal of marriage (husband goes to work, wife keeps house), but in the way they grapple with the future. Some predictions seem banal by modern standards, others still far off and bordering on fantastic -- but the optimism and hope are undeniable. Asimov is refreshing and endearing, and the retro-feel has its own appeal to me. The Complete Robot is a solid hit, taking me back to that summer in which I first delighted in Asimov's short stories. I definitely recommend it.

Highlights:

• "Sally", a favorite of mine about automated cars with personalities.
• "True Love", in which a computer designed to find its maker the perfect match finds his own.
• "The Tercentenary Incident", set on 4 July 2076, follows the aftermath of an attempted assassination of the US President. The assassins seemed to have only vaporized the president's android decoy -- but who can know that that puff of atoms following the disintegration blast belonged to an android, and not to an unpopular president?
• "Reason", in which quality-assurance technicians struggle with the first sentient robot after it establishes a religion based on the worshiping the station which it was designed to serve. 
• "Mirror Image", an unexpected treat featuring the Robots trilogy team of Elijah Baley and Daneel Olivaw as they attempt to settle a matter of academic fraud.
• "The Bicentennial Man" follows a robot's quest for humanity. Watching the Robin Williams movie of this prompted me to read The Positronic Man back in high school, my first involvement with Asimov. The link leads to the trailer.

"To those of you who have read some (or, possibly, all) of my robot stories before, I welcome your loyalty and patience. To those of you who have not, I hope this book has given you pleasure -- and I'm pleased to have met you -- and I hope we meet again soon." - p. 683, 'the last word'.

Indeed, Dr. A.

Asimov: The Complete Stories, Volume I

Isaac Asimov: The Complete Stories, Volume I
© 1990 Isaac Asimov
614 pages

I finished this book over a week ago, but academic responsibilities have seen my writing limited to papers for class and my creativity beyond that slightly dampened. I acquired this book a few months ago and have read from it ever since, little by little. The set it is part of was never completed: only two of the three planned books were ever released. Volume I contains two of Asimov's short-story collections, Earth is Room Enough and Nine Tomorrows. The former is a mix of science fiction and fantasy, while the latter is straight science fiction with humorous and -- as always with Asimov, self-depreciating -- poetry rounding things out. This collection contains some of my favorite pieces by Asimov, and of course I would recommend it to any fans of the good doctor or to classical science fiction fans. Here are a few of the stories you might be interested in:

• The classic "Nightfall", a short story about a world with six suns and a history of civilization-destroying madness. Scientists and cultists both predict the end of the world is at hand. 
• "The Feeling of Power" depicts Earth in the future, where reliance on computers has grown to the point that humans can no longer do simple arithmetic: computers themselves design and manufacture the newer generations of computers. A technological historian sorts out how to work through simple mathematical formulas and begins teaching them to his fellow citizens, only to be horrified when the military realizes math's uses.
• "Profession" is one of the more interesting stories, at least for me, and shows an Earth similar to the Earth in "Feeling of Power". Technology is used to teach children to read and to train them for their professions, but when one man tries to beat the system and learn on his own, strange things happen.
• "The Last Question", one of Asimov's favorites: can entropy be beaten? 
• "The Fun They Had": children in Earth's far future puzzle over the existence of books and communal classrooms in an age where they are taught by robotic tutors.
• "The Immortal Bard": William Shakespeare is plucked from his own time and finds himself in an English class devoted to analyzing the collected works of Shakespeare.
• "The Gentle Vultures": Aliens puzzle over why Earth has not yet destroyed itself in a nuclear war.
• "All the Troubles of the World" features Asimov's "Multivac", the ultimate computer that knows all...which turns out to be too much.
• "Breeds There a Man?" is another interesting one, also involving aliens and nuclear physics. 

Pebble in the Sky

Pebble in the Sky

© 1950 Isaac Asimov

223 pages

After finishing the Foundation and Robots series (save Robots and Empire) I decided to move on to the Galactic Empire series which fits in between them -- tying Earth's near future as depicted in the Robots books and the Galaxy's far future in the Foundation novels together. I was able to purchase Triangle last fall but have never gotten around to reading any of the three Empire books contained within (The Stars like Dust, Pebble in the Sky, and The Currents of Space) in full until today. My impression of the series from what I've read in Asimov's biographies is that they were not produced as a deliberate trilogy, but are rather three books that share the same essential setting. As the stories are not related, I've decided to read them in the order that they were published instead of in order of internal chronology.

The Galactic Empire books are set thousands of years in Earth's future, in which humanity has colonized the galaxy and forgotten its own origins. Eight hundred years ago, the galaxy was united under the Spaceship and Sun emblem of the Empire, bringing peace, prosperity, and order. This I was expecting, and so you can imagine my surprise when the novel started out in 1949 Chicago, beginning with the story of a retired tailor named Joseph Schwartz who is suddenly thrust into Earth's future when he walks through an undetectable fissure in space-time. He is an artifact -- his language dead, limited parts of its vocabulary known only to archaeologists who specialize in the dismal subject of Earth.

Dismal? Earth? Indeed -- in Asimov's setting, Earth is a partially radioactive backwater planet regarded as the back end of nowhere, populated by superstitious and generally nasty people who think too much of themselves. The Galaxy, lead by the city-planet of Trantor, has long forgotten its populations' origins: the theory that life arose on one planet and spread is supported by only a few, and bears an embarrassing resemblance to the stories told by the theocrats reigning in Earth that once Earth was the center of the galaxy, that all of civilization sprung from that meager pebble in the sky.

The theocrats on Earth -- the "Council of Ancients", who rule through custom and secret police -- have not forgotten Earth's former glory. If we can believe characters in the book, Earth has rebelled against the might of the Empire on at least two occasions. Earthers may be their galaxy's Roma, despised and regarded as "uncultured", but they are fiercely proud of themselves regardless. They regard themselves as free and technically at war with the Empire, although they allow an imperial procurator to live in a fortress on Mount Everest. Thus, when an Imperial archaeologist arrives to do some research in Earth's radioactive zones -- forbidden by custom -- and a stranger is taken in by Earth scientists who are quite possible subversives, the Ancients' secret police smell a conspiracy. As the story unfolds, we shall see that their paranoia is being induced by their fear that a plan in the works will be uncovered by the Empire -- a plan that could topple the Empire and give Earth its "Second Kingdom".

Pebble in the Sky is very much dated, but one of the reasons I like reading Asimov's stuff is that his works are dated. His novels and story stories have that mid-20th century feel to them, one that's hard to put into words but very noticeable -- like when the characters speak of tape recordings. The same feeling is present when watching Star Trek's original series, but I can't put my finger on what it is. Pebble in the Sky is a rather interesting story, although it was not originally meant to be a novel and may bear that out. It's recommended reading for Asimov fans like myself, and for those who like their science fiction to have that classic "feel" to it, whatever it is.

The Time Machine

The Time Machine

© 1895 H.G. Wells

108 pages

I was not expecting The Time Machine to be such a short read. The Great Illustrated Classics treatment of it was the first bit of science fiction I ever read, and I remember it being a fairly thick read and was surprised to find that my library's only copy of the work was bound in a collection with The Invisible Man. Much of that book from my childhood sticks with me: the Time-Traveler staring at two wilted flowers, the titular machine that looked more like an amusement park ride than a time-traveling device, the way it made me want to find out what "mutton" tasted like, since the Time Traveler found it so appealing when he returns from his first trip -- and the haunting image of him staring at a bloated sun that filled the sky on a cold and dying Earth.

You may have surmised at this point that The Time Machine is a novella about a man who goes time-traveling. It begins at his home in England as he talks with his friends about the reality of four dimensions and the fact that time is as real as width or depth. (I found this very interesting when I was a child, given that science classes at the elementary level consisted of memorizing definitions of things.) He then states that he has found a way to move forward through time, and demonstrates with a little model of a time machine to prove this to his skeptical friends, most of whom are known only from their occupations -- as is the Time Traveler. Most of the story is told from his point of view: a week after he demonstrates his little model, he returns from a more extended time-traveling trip, most of which he spends in the far future.

He spends most of his time in the year 802,701, in which he discovers (in England) two races of people whom he believes are the descendants of humanity, the first being a childlike race of people living in vast communal structures who spend their time eating fruit, singing songs, and dances. At first the Traveler believes these people to be the fulfillment of human evolution -- they have completely conquered Nature, and now can enjoy the fruits of their labor. The problem with this, as the Traveler soon discovers, is that these people (the Eloi) are not enjoying the fruits of their labor. They do nothing other than sleep, eat, and enjoy other sensual pleasures. They don't grow food or make clothing -- so where are their generous supplies of fruit and simple tunics coming from? Our Traveler finds this out when he discovers the second race of men, the Morlocks: they live underground, fiddle with machines, and prey on the Eloi like humans treat cattle.

The Traveler's explanation for the evolution of the Eloi and Morlocks is grounded in then-contemporary social conditions and historical materialism: he believes that the Eloi and the Morlocks are the ancestors of the bourgeaouise and working class respectively. I assume that since the laborers were treated like animals, they became so. Our Traveler is quick to admit that this explanation, however plausible, could be wrong -- just as his initial thoughts about the Eloi were. As he explores the landscape -- eventually venturing into the Morlock underworld -- he befriends an Eloi named Weena. She seemed to be less present in the actual novella than in the children's book I read,but perhaps as a child I simply gave her more attention. Eventually the Traveler leaves the world of 802,701 to witness Earth's end, and quickly returns to his present to tell his friends of his story. The novel has a slight twist ending.

What is remarkable for a book written in 1895 is how utterly readable this novella is: Victorian language can be a bit dense at times, but this was easy to read as a magazine article. The story has its charm as well.

Lead picture is from The Big Bang Theory.

The Robots of Dawn

The Robots of Dawn
© 1983 Isaac Asimov
419 pages

I return to Asimov's Robots series with the third mystery novel featuring plainclothesman Elijah Baley. Having established a reputation on Earth and elsewhere in the galaxy for his ability to adjust to new situations and earn the trust of "Spacers", or humans who have lived on other words long enough to develop their own cultures on their various worlds, Baley is asked to travel to Aurora to investigate a case of robotocide. While en route, Baley is delighted to see his old crime-solving partner Daneel Olivaw -- an android who was made to look and act human. Daneel is one of a kind, because as we will soon learn, the only other android has been rendered inoperative -- and it is that crime which Baley has been called to invesitigate.

Baley and Daneel land in Aurora -- the planet of the "dawn", hence the name -- where Baley learns that this case is more complicated than he had imagined. To render a robot inoperative is not a crime, particularly since its owner is the only man with the knowledge and skill sufficient to destroy the robot in the way it was destroyed -- but that man, Dr. Han Fastolfe, is Earth's lone champion on Aurora, the greatest of the Spacer worlds. The fifty "Spacer" worlds are all more technologically advanced than Earth, as Earth's resources are tied in maintaining its massive population. Technological advances are also actively suppressed by the Spacers, who do not want Earth to begin colonizing space anew and saturating the galaxy with its aggressive and primitive billions. If Fastolfe is implicated in any legal embarrassment, his political opponents can use that to quiet him down and thus maintain Aurora's policy of restraining Earth. Fastolfe insists that he didn't do it, forcing Baley to interview both humans and robots in an effort to discern the truth.

Asimov maintains his "unadorned" style and smoothly incorporates information from his Robot stories ("Liar!" and "The Bicentennial Man") into the plot of his book, having his characters treat them as legends of the past. The Robots of Dawn seems to rely on more characters than The Naked Sun or Caves of Steel. Although this is a perfectly enjoyably mystery novel, what I find most interesting is Asimov's replication of culture, particularly cultural taboos. Robots of Dawn was as enjoyable as ever, although I think I still prefer The Caves of Steel at this point. I'm interested in reading the final Robots book, Robots and Empire, but don't have access to it presently.

The Caves of Steel

The Caves of Steel
© Isaac Asimov 1953

I finally found a copy of The Caves of Steel this week. I’ve been looking for this book since the beginning of November, but my libraries have been unable to procure a copy that isn’t lost. The Caves of Steel is a detective story set in the future -- roughly around the 23rd century. Earth’s cities have become “Cities”: enclosed structures where people are not exposed to the open here. People move from place to place through moving “strips” -- a la Jetsons ? -- and no longer live and eat as separate families. Suburban sprawl has been replaced by sectional “boxes”. Each sectional building is divided into sections, and each section has apartments for families to live in. These apartments do not include kitchens, laundry room, or bathrooms, though -- those are all communal.

The main character is a man named Elijah Baley, a plainclothes detective working for the City government. His City is New York, and it is now the second-biggest city in the world, the first being Los Angeles. Baley is tasked with finding out who killed a Spacer sociologist. A Spacer is a resident of one of the fifty Spacer worlds -- fifty worlds settled by Earth with very little population density. The Spacers have created for themselves “C/Fe Societies”, wherein humans (carbon-based) and robots (iron-based) work together. The Earthers, being conservative, are very much opposed to robots, and such is the environment that Baley has been raised in.

When Baley is asked to solve this murder, he is also asked to take on a robot partner. We would call this partner an android, for he looks like a human and has been programmed to mimic human behavior. Baley is at first aghast at the prospect of working with his new partner -- R. Daneel Olivaw -- but grows accustomed to him by book’s end. The book is the story of their efforts to find the murderer. Asimov’s writing seems to be even better than I’m used to, but anticipation may have heightened my enjoyment. I enjoyed learning about the world he created, and I think he did a good job. He thinks about the impact living in these apartment-boxes has on people, including taboos and so on. I found the book to be excellent reading, and I will enjoy reading more in the series.

Robot Dreams

Robot Dreams
Isaac Asimov © 1986
Berkely Publishing, NY
349 pages

When I first started reading Asimov's fiction, I started with short story collections -- and this week I returned to that type of literature. Robot Dreams is a collection of short stories that deal with robots or computers. Some of these stories have appeared in collections I've read in weeks past, and so I re-read them -- and enjoyed them again, as much as I did the first time I read them. Asimov begins the book with an introduction, and it is his introductions and commentaries that first made me such a fan of him.

Although the collection is titled "Robot Dreams", the stories in the collection don't all have robots. Many of them are about the role of computers -- which for Asimov, writing in the forties and fifties, was real science fiction. A few of his stories feature Multivac, which is a character by itself. Multivac is always depicted as a massive computer that coordinates all of the other computers on the planet -- Asimov never predicted personal computers (although he did predict hand-held computers and personal consoles that could access the "real" computers). In Asimov's stories, computers are industrial and government tools, each section having a part of the globe to handle its problems. Asimov also depicts computers building better computers, to the extent that humanity forgets how to and becomes as dependent on the computers as -- well, there's no real anagram, I don't think.

A few stories from the collection, with comments:

• "The Feeling of Power" is one of my favorites. People have completely forgotten how to do ordinary math, so dependent on computers are they. Earth is at war with the planet Deneb, which is similarly addicted to computers and is probably settled by humans. Then a lowly technician realizes he can do math in his head, which has implications for the war effort.
• "Little Lost Robot" deals with robots at a hyperstation. It features Susan Calvin, Asimov's first female and one of his most memorable characters. One robot with a superiority complex is told to "get lost" and promptly does so -- compromising the security of Earth's hyperspace program and possibly the future of robotics.
  
• In "Robot Dreams", an experimental robot brain leads to a robot that have subconscious thoughts and dream about them -- but its subconscious thoughts of those of it freeing robots from human servitude.
• "Lest We Remember" is the story of a man whose life is changed when he takes part of a medical trial designed to increase the ability to recall stored memories -- and who learns that an infallible memory doesn't necessarily make one wise.
• "The Ugly Little Boy" is always mentioned by Asimov as one of his personal favorites. I find it enjoyable, but it's not a favorite of mine. Still, I mention it because he likes it so much. The story is about a Neanderthal boy who is ripped from time and brought to Earth to be studied.
• "Franchise" is one of the more interesting stories, because it predicts the importance of voting machines. Asimov wrote this in 1955, remember. In Asimov's future -- in our reality, November 2008 -- Multivac has come to control the elections by analyzing data and coming to a rational prediction about who the elecorate would vote for -- if they were in fact to vote. So complex has Multivac become by 2008 that it only needs to ask a few questions of one voter to come to its decision. This voter is apparantly chosen by Multivac to be the most represenative of all his citizens. He is informed thusly: "Mr. Norman Muller, it is necessary for me to inform you on the behalf of the President of the United States that you have been chosen to represent the American elecorate on Tuesday, November 4, 2008". Considering the week I happened to read this in, you can imagine what I found so interesting about it.
  

I enjoyed almost every story, even those I have read before. There are a couple of shorter stories that I didn't quite "get", but they were vastly outnumbered by the interesting ones. I enjoyed the collection immensely and reccommend it.

This Week at the Library (3/9)

Books this Update:

• Jailbird, Kurt Vonnegut
• The Ascent of Science, Brian Silver
• Foundation and Empire, Isaac Asimov
• It’s Been a Good Life, Isaac Asimov
• For the Love of Life, Erich Fromm

I began this week by reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Jailbird, which I had not planned to read at first. I’ve read a little bit of Vonnegut before, although his fictional style is a unlike anything I’m used to. I picked up Jailbird and began to read through it: it seemed interesting, so I checked it out. The book is about a man named Walter F. Starbuck, a well-intentioned and little-appreciated bureaucrat in the Nixon White House, having earned a meaningless post by accidentally advancing Nixon’s career. Starbuck’s life is quite interesting, and the story of that life unfolds throughout the book as he or an author telling the story of his life recollects them -- think of the approach taken with Forrest Gump. In a very limited way, Gump and Starbuck’s stories are similar in that they are frequently and accidentally involved in the stories of history. The plot is much easier to understand than Slaughterhouse-5, although the latter is far more popular given that it’s a criticism of the Dresden firebombing. The story is quite interesting, as is the book. Oddly enough, even though it is a fiction book, it has an index. The book is described by Vonnegut through the voice of one of his characters as being about economics. Many of the characters’ lives are influenced by both the industrialists/capitalists and the socialist movement then present in the United States.

Last week I began reading Brian Silver’s The Ascent of Science, but didn’t finish it as it is rather lengthy and I was reading other books at the same time. Silver’s book is essentially a history of western science, but it is presented more as a history of scientific ideas -- the controversies they generated and the influence they had. The book, written for lay audiences, explains scientific concepts fairly well while maintaining an informal spirit. The author includes himself in the book, offering opinions and making comments. The book is written well, and Silver takes care to explain how scientific ideas influenced political and social history. Despite this, I would only recommend it over Ray Spangenburg and Kit Moser’s two series if you’re an adult who doesn’t want to be bothered with an entire series to start getting a handle on the wide world of science.

Last week I read Isaac Asimov’s Second Foundation and commented that it was set far enough apart from Foundation that there was probably a novel in between. There is -- Foundation and Empire. In Foundation and Empire, we see that the Foundation has grown into a large trading empire, and its elected “Mayors” have become autocrats -- which is resented by a sizeable group on the planet, who maintain a “democratic underground”. I wonder if that’s where that’s where the website of the same name gets it from. What’s left of the Galactic Empire vanishes in this book, but before the Foundation can capitalize on the opportunity, they are toppled by the Mule, a mutant who can his mind to inflict or induce strong emotions in people -- “hypercharismatic” is the way I described him last week. The book was an interesting read, although I think it’s the weakest of the trilogy.

Quotation of the Week:

“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Go Wond’rous creature, mount where Science guides.”

- Alexander Pope, "Esssay on Man", quoted in The Ascent of Science.

This post is a little unusual because of my return to Montevallo. I read the aforementioned books two weeks ago. Last week I was unable to post about them because of computer problems, but now I am online again. This past week, I read Isaac Asimov’s posthumous autobiography, It’s Been a Good Life. The autobiography was published by his wife, Janet Asimov, from text he had written and from his letters to her. Despite of the fact that it is a loose compilation, the book is put together well. Asimov’s style is perfectly engaging and is quite conversational. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Lastly I read Erich Fromm’s For the Love of Life. Fromm was a German social critic, and I’m not quite sure how I found the book. The book is composed of essays by Fromm and interview transcripts, so the topic of the book drifts. The first part was about “Affluence and Ennui” and is essentially a critique of a society obsessed with consumerism. The book also contains a lot of psychoanalysis: Fromm maintains that various thought-systems -- the Judeo-Christian tradition, Zen Buddhism, Freudian psychology, and Marxism -- all inform his worldview. (Fromm is described as a humanistic philosopher, but I don’t think that refers to contemporary humanism: humanism means different things in different contexts, and the rational “life stance” of humanism would be a strange bedfellow to most of the systems he mentioned. I say most because I’m not that familiar with Zen Buddhism.)

My enjoyment of the book changed depending on which section I was reading. While I liked “Affluence and Ennui”, the bits on dream interpretation and the psychoanalysis of Adolf Hitler weren’t all that enjoyable. I’m very skeptical when it comes to dream interpretation and psychoanalysis. Given that our dreams are our thoughts, I’m sure they betray things about us. The level of analysis Fromm goes into is too much for me. One of the examples Fromm uses is one of Freud’s dreams. Freud dreamed about a white flower that was shriveled and behind a bell-jar. Freud wanted to give the flower to his wife, but he could not remove it from the bell-jar. This is supposed to mean that Freud had reduced sexuality -- the flower -- to a thing to be studied and so could not really enjoy it. I don’t follow the logic: is it supposed to be another instance of “unweaving the rainbow”? The analysis of Hitler was the same. Fromm’s conclusion was that Hitler was a necrophiliac and hated all living things, so he was possessed by this enormous urge to destroy.

Pick of the [Update]: It’s Been a Good Life, Isaac Asimov

Quotation of the Week: “To learn is to broaden, to experience more, to snatch new aspects of life for yourself. To refuse to learn or to be relieved at not having to learn is to commit a form of suicide; in the long run, a more meaningful type of suicide than the mere ending of physical life." - Isaac Asimov, It’s Been a Good Life.

Next Week:

• When You Are Engulfed in Flames, David Sedaris. Sedaris is a comedian that I particularly enjoy. The title (for those of you whose curiosity has been piqued) comes from a translation error Sedaris observed while visiting Japan. I know this because he talked about it when promoting the book on The Late Show with David Letterman.
• Me of Little Faith, Lewis Black. I like Lewis Black’s comedy, having become a fan of him via YouTube.
• Carl Sagan: A Life by Keay Davidson. Carl Sagan is on my shortlist of “heroes”.
• Survival in Auschwitz, Primo Levi. Required reading for one of my classes, but I'm reading it early as it looks interesting.