Rewritten by machine on new technology

I have said more than once that I am abjectly addicted to SF (science fiction, to the layperson). Here is even more proof.

Picking up where I left off last time I submitted to this group: I read a novel by Robert J. Sawyer called Rollback, in which there is a new and very expensive treatment that causes people to revert to a much younger age.  An elderly couple receives the treatment ... but for some reason it only works on the man! So here he is, chronologically amost 90 years old but physically 30, living with his 90-year-old wife and trying desperately to find a way for her to "roll back" her age as well. Sadly, it does't work and she dies.

I have read Robert Sawyer before and really liked his work - he has some wonderful ideas, for example "What would it be like if we discovered an alternate universe where Neanderthals never died out?" He pulled that one off admirably with a compulsively readable trilogy ... but sometimes I find him a little ... PC maybe? or maybe a little milquetoast. Perhaps it's because Sawyer is from Toronto and a real family man; it's just too close to home to be exciting to me. Reminds me of my dad. And sometimes he seems to belabour his point of how morally upright his heroes are, and how thoroughly pathetic his villains; not enough conflict. So in Rollback, while I liked the story, I often wanted to say "oh yeah, riiiight" to the characters, ironically because they are too true to life!

Okay, so next I read The Margarets, by Sheri S. Tepper. This novel features a young woman named (wait for it) Margaret, who grew up in a place where she was the only child, and so had a lot of imaginary friends. Somehow, over the years as she grows up, her imaginary friends split off from her one by one and become real people who all go to live on different planets. (It's all "explained" in the end.)

I really like Sheri Tepper ... but I find her books are like Stephen King's: I like the beginning and setup of her stories, but am often unmoved by the endings.  So in this case we had a really compelling setup where Earth's ecology has broken down so thoroughly (Tepper often writes about the effects of environmental degradation) that all Earth has to trade with other planets is excess population, ie. slaves. This explains how all the poor Margarets end up living all over the known galaxy, each one on a different planet. And in the end, due to some vast astrological alignment, all the Margarets must come together and perform a ritual to save the galaxy from evil. So, er ... yeah.

Next I read a book of short stories by Iain M. Banks (WHY do SF writers always have to have that middle initial???) called The State of the Art. A few of the stories are set in the fictional universe of the Culture, an advanced society where the spaceships have hilarious names and most of the people are as sheltered and spoiled as Paris Hilton ... but the people who are not born into the Culture are largely barbarous. There's also a tale called Odd Attachment that points out how very difficult it can be to understand an alien that drops from the sky into your world. Heaps of fun. Banks has a wicked sense of humour. He's one of my new fave SF writers. I've only read one of his novels so far (The Algebraist) but I will be hitting up the library for more ASAP.

Then I moved on to a sequel by C.J. Cherryh, Invader. I had read the first book (Foreigner)in this (very long) series last year. At the time I didn't know what I was getting into: there are now nine books in the series, arranged into 3 trilogies, and from the dust jackets it's hard to tell what order to read them in. So one day last month I came home from the library, thrilled because I thought I had found book 2 and book 3 of the first trilogy, but after finishing Invader, discovered I had the wrong book 3. Just when the lead characters were about to get it on!!! So now I am jonesing, and pestering the librarian, waiting for book 3 to become available. Maybe I should just buy it for fuck's sake.

Okay, so this series is about a planet where humans have become stranded due to a broken down spaceship. They share the planet with its indigenous race, the Atevi, who are intelligent but less technologically advanced. There has already been a war between the two groups, which the Atevi won, so now there is a treaty requiring humans to share their technology while remaining confined to a single island, all except for one lone human who is allowed to live in the capital city and serve the Atevi government as translator. The books are about his rather stressful work trying to stay afloat in a foreign environment, dealing with unstable politics he doesn't really understand, and having to explain all this to his own government on the island. Oh and the Atevi are kind of like the Klingons or Cardassians on Star Trek - big and nasty and intimidating. You never know when someone's going to get assassinated or strung up by the thumbs. I just love this series, it's a blast!

Ad then finally, while I was in Victoria (where the vintage shops are cheaper) I bought this huge coffee table book called Science Fiction: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, by John Clute, which covers the history of SF from Frankenstein (1818) to the mid-90s. Sure, it has pictures, but it has lots of words too - essays on dominant SF themes over the years, articles on it musta been more than 100 authors, reviews of 50 or so classic works, and timelines of pulp magazines, books, movies and comics. Among other things. And this book was hard to read! it's a really huge and unwieldy thing, the pages measuring 12" by 12" easily. And now that I have read it, I have a list of about a dozen novels that I must find and read ASAP. Maybe I'll make it to 25 books this year after all!