I chose Moon Base (1964) by E.C. Tubb because the description on the back:

“Felix Larsen had been sent to Luna Station One to investigate ‘something odd on the Moon.’ There was no proof, not even a concrete basis for suspicion, yet there was a feeling so wrong about the place that Security had hinted of traitors.

On the first day at the sealed station beneath the Moon’s crust, Felix had become violently ill. He awoke from a drugged sleep with no memory of the intervening time lapse. Now he had to be doubly careful because his secret might be out, and somewhere in the station – or somewhere out there on the alien Moon itself – an unknown intelligence was waiting for the critical moment.”

seemed to encompass most of my favorite sf tropes. Knowing that Tubb was writing in the middle of the Cold War, the idea of a double conspiracy set in the bowels of the moon was very promising. Equally endearing was the “Cast of Characters” page, which offered vague but intriguing introductions to some of the characters (ex. “When a man tried to kill her, she laughed it off… he hadn’t succeeded, had he?”).

I’m a little disappointed to say that while Moon Base is far from unreadable, it isn’t the nuanced space-noir I thought it was. Looking into Tubb’s background, I can kind of understand why. He wrote hundreds of novels and short stories from the 1930s up until his death in 2010 (there are some posthumous releases, too) and was never recognized with, like, a Hugo or Nebula or anything like that. There’s very little information about Moon Base; all that I could gather was that it was one of Tubb’s rare standalone books and, according to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, “comes as close to Hard SF as [he] was inclined to go.”

Moon Base is (mostly) hard sf and military sf. The story follows Felix Larsen, a spy who has been told he needs to go the Moon because he must investigate what amounts a bad vibe. In this post-space-race era of the Cold War, the four major superpowers – the United States, Great Britain, Russia, and China – have all established their own moon bases. There’s no trust between any of them, and they’re all armed. This is par for the course. While on the Moon, we see Felix adjust to life on the station while undercover. Issues include getting used to the low gravity, the quality of the food, and the uncanny nature of the station’s mini-society. He describes the latter:

“It was, he thought a little like the hive of a colony of ants but without the sharp diversity of types to be found in either. There were men and women, all mature, all apparently-well adjusted. There were scientists and skilled technicians of both sexes. There were soldiers, again of both sexes, but, aside from the insignia on their coveralls, there was no way of telling military and non-military personnel apart. Social barriers simply did not exist.

And, to any psychologist, that was all wrong.”

This is an interesting passage because it lets someone who hasn’t read the book know exactly what its worst aspect is: its very, very in-your-face messaging straight from the author’s own tank of opinions. Tubb was a British man, and Brits, as a group, are really put on a pedestal here. A lot of this is because of the story’s military setting; lots of these characters are old British scientists, old British politicians, or old British space army officers. One character is named actually “Gloria Brittain.” Despite their presence at all levels of the British station, Tubb consistently diminishes Moon Base’s women characters and characters of color. The character introduction from above, for example, is for Shena Dawn, who is one of the five characters listed on that page. She appears for one chapter and does nothing besides almost be killed.

There’s a lot a did like about the book, though. It really started picking up steam plot-wise around the second half – there’s body horror, actual spywork, and an unexpected twist at the very end. And despite its heavy-handedness, I did like how it touched on national sovereignty, technological development, isolation, and radicalization. If you think that sounds like high praise given how much I’ve explained my disappointment, you’re right – none of these topics are presented with any subtlety, but they were unintentionally humorous enough to make me appreciate their inclusion.

I would recommend this book to people who anyone needs to waste two hours (in a good way). For someone who wrote hundreds of books and didn’t particularly care for anything he was writing about in this one, it’s a solid effort. Imagining it as a semi-decent b-movie while reading made for a more fulfilling experience.

One of my long time favorite deeply indie bands is The Mechanisms, a British band best known for publishing outlandish concept albums that readapt traditional folk songs into futuristic settings.

One of my favorite of their albums is Ulysses Dies At Dawn a heist/cyberpunk noir story that leans heavily on Greek mythology. The album tells the story of a far future world where death has become impossible (and that’s not a good thing). When anyone dies, their brain is harvested and used for computer processing power in the city’s massive supercomputer called the Acheron. However, a group of criminals hired by a mysterious benefactor has been charged with opening Ulysses’ vault which is said to contain a weapon powerful enough to overthrow the system and bring down the Acheron.

Ulysses Dies At Dawn is a scifi heist retelling/readaptation of Greek mythology where the Olympians are rich elites who can afford to pay for medical treatments to keep them alive so they never have to have their brains harvested for the Acheron. The hero of the album is the jaded and traumatized Ulysses who vowed revenge on the Olympians after committing atrocities in their name during the equivalent of the Trojan War.

Also featured in the album are: Hades (overseer of the Acheron), Oedipus (a blind cyborg), Orpheus, and Heracles.

Although the recording quality is sometimes less that stellar, the lyrical complexity and the worldbuilding the Mechanisms manage to squeeze in to about an hour of music is absolutely amazing. Every album of theirs I’ve listened to I’ve ended up thinking about long after I finished and I always find something new each time I re-listen.

If a heist/cyberpunk noir retelling of Greek mythology isn’t up your alley, there’s also a Murder on the Orient Express-style mystery featuring the Norse gods and also cosmic horror. Or, alternatively, a wild west adventure that takes place on a massive space station rapidly falling out of orbit into a star.

If you’re interested, here’s one of my favorite stand-alone songs from Ulysses Dies at Dawn and a link to their spotify page!

Blog Overlord Post #4: Statistics on the visibility of Women in SciFi

Here is the beginning of some research that I am doing in which I have compiled the names listed across various rankings of “Best SciFi Authors” in an attempt to gain insight into how the public views the Female authors of Science Fiction. Ill put the data that I have so far below. Overall I’ve found that amongst internet rankings Women make up about 9% of the spots on “Best Sci Fi Authors of all time” lists. This is disproportionately small to the fact that 15% of all Sci Fi writers are estimated to have been Female (Lisa Yaszek, “The Future is Female” Introduction). This 9% figure is also extremely small to the percentage of women that have been named Grandmasters of Science Fiction by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Of the 38 recipients of this prestigious award, 9 have been women, which amounts to 24% (Andre Norton (1983) Ursula K. Le Guin (2002) Anne McCaffrey (2004) Connie Willis (2011) C.J. Cherryh (2015) Jane Yolen (2016) Lois McMaster Bujold (2019) Nalo Hopkinson (2020)    Mercedes Lackey (2021)).My final project will look into some of the history of Science fiction and venture into why these discrepancies occur.

Overview of my findings so far:

Amount of Women included in Each List used:

A full list of names is included in this Spreadsheet, and it might also work as a good sci-fi book rec list! Albeit a bit too heavy on Male authors: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-4ODpeW2F3W8z-xou1Lj_dJ_Chu4-04i3OlIVwal5c0/edit

Cheers,

SB

Overlord Post #2 – Daft Punk Music Video Series

As an avid house music and electronic music fan, Daft Punk is a staple of my library, and I’m sure many of you have enjoyed daft punk in your free time or on a dance floor at some point. Famous for songs like “Around the World,” “Digital Love,” and “Harder Better Faster Stronger”, Daft Punk is one of the most iconic names in the electronic music world.

What many people don’t know about daft punk is that instead of normal music videos for their second studio Album, “Discovery,”  they produced a series of videos that forms one movie!! It runs just over an hour and I’ve attached the link here. There are no words except for the music itself and the story is an awesome animated sci-fi adventure where the members of an alien band are kidnapped and brainwashed into making music for an evil capitalist and stripped of all joy!  Seeing that this has happened, a powerful alien friend has to come rescue the band members and break them free. The story is exceptional, the music suits the visuals perfectly, and there are several sci-fi elements to both the music and the video.

Do watch this if you get the chance! It is one of my favorite musical/visual creations ever 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qxe-QOp_-s

Blog Overlord Post #1

So a few months ago I wandered into The Book Barn in Brunswick (2 Lincoln St) and I have just started making my way through the books I picked up there. First of all, the store is awesome! Its essentially a house that only consists of bookshelves that are packed by the man who runs the place with collectors editions of books, go check it out! The place is riddled with Sci-Fi and the owner has plenty of his own recs. Number one on his list was Dune, but having already read it, I opted for #2 — Stranger in a Strange Land (the Uncut Version) by Robert Heinlein.

The book is quite long, 525 pages to be exact, and is worth every page from the editors note through the back cover. The story of how this version came to be is fascinating and told in the editors note. In short, the version of this book that was originally published was limited to 160,000 words because the Publishers thought it would fail horribly, so Heinlein cut his 220,000 word manuscript to meet the quota. It then wins the Hugo award! But After Heinlein’s death this longer version was released and it has become an essentially  unanimous decision that this version takes the cake for being the true masterpiece.

The plot focuses “The Man From Mars,” Michael Valentine Smith, a human who was born on Mars, raised by Martians, and brought back to Earth by humans to “be with his own people.” As the heir to a massive wealth on Earth, it seems the Terran government is trying to hold Michael hostage, so his Nurse and some of her friends work to free the Man From Mars. In an epic turn of events we learn that the Martian human has powers beyond the Terran human realm of understanding, and page by page we see how he utilizes and develops these power once he is free to roam the Earthly world — including through stints in carnivals, fry kitchens, temples, and what could only be described as a nudist sex cult of infinite love and empathy. The importance of Religion, Language (Martian and English), and Sex, and the entanglement of the three are huge philosophical themes in this novel, but others remain relevant including the meanings of family, truth, and love.

One interesting component of the book is that Heinlein coins several “Martian” phrases including, most notably, the word “Grok”, which you better get used to seeing and saying if you intend on reading this novel (it will briefly work its way into your thoughts while, and immediately after you read this book). One Main tenet of the plot is that “Language itself shapes a man’s basic ideas” (212), which is used as a possible explanation for why humans struggle to find happiness, and is also essential to understanding the differences between The Man From Mars and his Earthling peers.

While I really enjoyed reading this, there are some problems with this book:

TRIGGER WARNING: Sexism, Racism, Racial Slurs/Violence, Possible Sexual Coercion, (Attempted Suicide, Cannibalism, also in the book, though not mentioned below)

There definitely is some sense of gender inequality stemming from certain characters, but I have not been able to fully Grok its place amidst a seemingly anarchist / anti-capitalist / sex positive  book. Women definitely derive power from their bodies throughout the story yet sex is de-stigmatized, making me think that from that point on it is purely character that drives attraction rather than physical traits. Nonetheless there is one character who regularly makes quips towards women that are belittling, despite the women playing significant intellectual, religious, and professional roles. I could not fully grok whether these were meant to be in jest and part of a two way banter between the sexes, or whether these were indeed sexist remarks (or perhaps they were both?). Maybe someone with more of a GSWS theory background can input after reading , or else I will just find out with more time to Grok. Michael often says in the book, “Waiting is until fullness.” For now, I wait.

Another similar problem has to do with religion. There are Jews, Christians, Cultists, Catholics, and Muslims in this book. They all work with each-other but one character frequently makes comments about his Muslim friend that I didn’t quite Grok to fullness but did make me feel a bit uncomfortable.

There is at least one instance where a woman coerces a man into having sex, asking multiple times and being told no, before the man gives in eventually. Technically the women knows the man’s real thoughts and that he is willing, and the man was admittedly being polite in regards to age customs, however, I Grok this could be read otherwise and in any non telepathic communication setting is most definitively rape.

Lastly, The N* Slur along with a suggestion of Lynching is used towards the main character in the final chapter. I thought this was unnecessary, although it is a reflection of the time of writing and a reminder of the hate acts that were occurring then and still occur to this day.

All this being said, the book was written in 1960 and was written as counter-culture sci-fi. While it is progressive in some elements in remains outdated in others. Overall I think that it is still very much worth a read for the thought that it provokes and the thoroughness, and entertainment value of the plot. Perhaps a second reader with a more critical theory lens will rip this to bits. But for me, this was a brilliant book that has, for better or for worse, aged.

Weird, Thought Provoking, Entertaining, Page Turner. And yes, probably controversial.

I give it a 9/10 and Very much recommend it.