Category Archives: Genre

Terror (1989)

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This book caught my attention because of the title. The spine of the book was sticking out and it read “Terror” in a really small font and I thought, “wow thats really bad graphic design” so I picked it up. 

Little did I know, this book was based in my obscure hometown, Hilo, and the details of my town in this book were so accurate, down to Hawaiian culture and myths. 

I tried researching whether the author, Frederick Pohl, had lived in Hawai’i for any amount of time but I couldn’t find anything. There was just a mention of him going on a cruise through the islands once. 

But for some reason, he mentions Hawai’i occasionally in his other works and knows a strange amount about the geology and history of the islands, probably from the extensive research he had done for this book.

The premise of the book is strange. It centers around two terrorist groups; one is a group of locals/Hawaiians that are anti-colonial and want white people and their impact off of the islands. The other group is the US government which is conspiring to insert a nuclear bomb into a dormant volcano near the islands in order to create an explosion as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs, in order to create a cloud of dust that would lower the grain productivity of the Soviet Union. It’s pretty absurd and I would love to know how it ends, but I am a bit past halfway done and this post is already overdue. 

I am kind of confused as to whether this is definitively SF but if it is then it may be colonization, apocalyptic, and hard SF due to the chapters of pure scientific explanations. 

I don’t recommend it but it isn’t necessarily bad or too offensive, more funny. 

I like that there is so much research into Hilo and volcanoes, and I don’t really like how there was a solid paragraph justifying why the main character (white mainlander) couldn’t tell apart “orientals” which were so abundant here haha.

Pohl, Frederick. “Terror” (1986). New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 1989. 

Living Spaceship

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Interior passageway of the living spaceship Moya.

Howdy! I thought I’d share this cool picture of the interior of the living spaceship Moya from the SF TV series Farscape. In the show, Moya is a sentient bio-mechanical creature that the main characters, a rebellious collection of fugitive aliens and one human, live in. According to the show’s twitter account, “The shapes of Moya’s hallways and passageways were based on a Spanish architect and designer, Antoni Gaudi.” Moya is one of my favorite characters/ aspects of the show as she has a compassionate and quirky personality. The show itself is unique and has a lot of personality, I would definitely recommend!

 

Ball Lightning by Cixin Liu

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I chose Ball Lightning for three reasons, only one of which is actually a fair assessment of the book. Reason 1 was that the cover was pretty. Reason 2 (the good one) was that I had heard good things about the author, Cixin Liu, from friends in the past. Reason 3 (my personal favorite and the most convincing) was that the reviewer featured on the cover was none other than Barack Obama, which was unexpected enough that I decided I needed to read it for the memes if nothing else.  

The book follows Chen, a man whose parents were killed by ball lightning in his youth. This event sparked a lifelong obsession with the phenomenon, leading him down dangerous paths and into revolutionary knowledge. I would classify this novel as definitively hard SF, as it delves into a real life phenomenon and brings in a lot of actual science. While I am usually more of a fan of soft SF, the science here was one of my favorite aspects of the story. I really appreciated the realism that it granted a story that is clearly speculative fiction, and the details about research funding felt pretty realistic and grounded the story well. 

One thing that frustrates me about this novel is its portrayal of female characters. All of the female characters feel like they are there fully to tell us something about the male characters. There was one scene with a female character whose only character trait was ‘desirable’ who was flirting with Chen, who ignored her and felt powerful for it. Chen is only interested in Lin Yun, his love interest, because she has not like other girls energy. I did not finish the entire novel, so I cannot say for sure whether this pattern held, but it was very annoying to me as a female reader. 

I think I would recommend this book, mainly because I think it was really well researched and Liu has a great command of suspense. While I had my issues with the novel, I still found myself wanting to know what happened next and invested in the plot. 

 

A note: The novel was originally published in Chinese in 2005, but the English translation was published in 2018.

Works Cited

Liu, Cixin. Ball Lightning. Translated by Joel Martinsen, Tor Books, 2018.

Cosmic Engineers

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Cover of Cosmic Engineers by Simak

I chose this book because it was my favorite cover art of any of the books I had seen in The Green Hand, and I wanted to read more of Simak’s work. I absolutely love the bright colors, the mountain range in the background and the cute little planet right of the robot’s head. I would absolutely draw something like this background, so naturally I had to read the book. I just the wish the story had as much personality as the cover. The story follows a group of humans, most notably two space journalist Herb and Gary and a woman, Caroline, who they woke from suspended animation. Caroline was aware throughout her 1,000 years in suspended animation and spent the time training her brain and developing new concepts about spatial relativity and the physical nature of space. The humans are called to by a group of robots, the Cosmic Engineers, who are trying to protect the universe and need the help of beings with creativity (something they don’t possess). Together the humans and Cosmic Engineers, well it was mostly Caroline, they prevent two universes from colliding, stop the bad guy aliens and go home happy.

This story is an optimistic space opera written in the Golden Age of SF and contains a multitude of interesting SF elements. Some interesting elements include the idea of robots outliving their creators but remaining devoted to them, the concept of humans abandoning Earth, anti-government and pro-individualism. The evil aliens in the story are a thinly veiled allegory for wither German National or Soviet Socialism. From the anti-collectivist sentiments and glorification of humanities’ creativity and brave heroism, is evident that the author was writing this story as an American 1964.

I’ll start with my favorite aspects. The main scientist is a woman who not only saves our universe but saves another universe and actually creates universes. She is far from the damsel in distress that most stories in the Golden Age of SF portray. I also loved the optimistic and positive portrayal of humanity. So much SF reveals the ugly flaws of humanity or imagines alien races that are far superior. Yet in this story, humanity is refreshingly celebrated as uniquely creative and adventurous. However, it could be a little hard to get through. The characters are flat, and the plot just chugs forward without any tension to keep the reader engaged. I got lost in the inconsistent details of the plot and accidentally ended up skimming some parts. There just wasn’t any depth or sentiment in the writing.

I looked at the publication page and it turns out this was originally a short story that Simak wrote in 1939 but he adapted it into a novel. I think it should have stayed a short story and I would be interested in reading it. However, I am not sure I would recommend the novel and would perhaps direct people to some of Simak’s better, richer writing. I am frustrated because the concept of a genius woman saving the universe and celebrating humanity is something I love. But I guess you really can’t judge a book by its cover; for such lively and colorful cover art, the story was grey.

 

 

Original Publicaiton as a Novel:
 Simak, Clifford Donald. Cosmic Engineers. Gnome Press, 1950.
Version I read:

Simak, Clifford Donald. Cosmic Engineers. Paperback Library, 1970

Green Hand Book Review: Venus Plus X

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Sturgeon, Theodore. Venus plus X. New York: Dell, 1979.

 

I chose Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon because the cover first caught my attention. The book covers that I looked at before finding the book dealt with space but I thought this one looked cooler. The pages were also colored, which most of the other books did not have. After reading the little blurb on the cover, I quickly found out that it dealt with the theme of gender and its erasure of it. Within this course, I found that the topic of power relations, including race, gender, and sexuality intrigued me the most–and this book seemed to fit my interests. In class, we also mentioned Sturgeon a few times but did not read any works from him so I thought this book would be perfect!

 

Venus Plus X follows the trope of a confused time traveler everyman coming into consciousness in a futuristic isolated community. In this community called Ledom, all of the members are gender-neutral and hidden from the rest of society; there is some ambiguity as to whether or not this society is utopic or just a means for human preservation. The protagonist Charlie Johns explores culture and technology, with interesting discourse about patriarchy, religion, reproductive practices and rights, and outlook on life. This story runs concurrently with an (underdeveloped) story of a “progressive” contemporary American family of the 60s who came off as only a foil. When it is revealed that the members of society are intersex and the process of how the members become intersex, the protagonist is disgusted and homophobic. While attempting to travel back to his time, it is brought to light that Charlie did not arrive through time travel. He’s a “control” person maintained by the Ledom for research purposes. He lives on the outside of civilization since he can’t be assimilated into Ledom society. The story ends with a nuclear bomb being set off but Ledom survives because of their technology.

 

This book was published amid Golden-Age SF with themes of sex, gender, sexuality, religion, technology, and human preservation. I think this book is interesting when looking at the context of the time period: It precedes both the Sexual Revolution and Second-Wave Feminism in the latter part of the 1960s. In this way, Venus Plus X is in some way a proto-feminist reading of society, where the core of the novel is an argument that the presumption that women and men are very different is wrong and socially destructive. Some ideas and dialogue are definitely antiquated but the messages are still applicable to our society today. It is also a story about human survival because the story also coincides with the middle of the Cold War, with the idea of forward-thinking technology and preservation.

 

I would recommend this book to people who like slow exposition stories. The book was quite slow at times and I found myself skimming through some parts. The latter half of the story is definitely where it picks up!

 

Extra notes: Venus Plus X was a finalist for the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

Dolphin Sex: Book Review of Startide Rising

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When book hunting at Green Hand, I wanted to find a book that was good in the sense that it had been awarded something or came highly recommended. After some digging, I came across US author David Brin’s Startide Rising which won the Hugo and Nebula Awards (according to its cover). It is a sci-fi epic about a human expedition, led by dolphins that have been uplifted to human intelligence (there is also an uplifted chimpanzee scientist), that has uncovered secrets to the origins of life in the universe, a secret many alien empires are persuing and are fighting over in the space above the downed ship. On a water planet (conveniently for a crew of dolphins), the humans and company must survive and escape to Earth without getting captured with plenty of politics and competing philosophies at play. It is the typical “trapped with time running out” story that includes clear-cut heroes loved by all trying to do the best in the world they can. There are also comments on the process of uplifting and echoes of the consequences of playing God with nature that veer quite close to social commentary. That is what makes the book great with enough backstory to make Tolkien jealous and personal politics and strategizing to give Game of Thrones a run for its money with an interesting story. The downside, as the title suggests, is the weird moments of over-sexualization. I could’ve enjoyed the book just as much without the dolphin-human romance and the perspective of horny dolphin thoughts.

Overall, I’d recommend the book if you’re willing to take it with a grain of salt; it can be cringe-inducing at moments, but it does do a good job of making an entertaining sci-fi epic with some deeper thought if you want to go that far.

Citation: Brin, David. Startide Rising. New York: Bantam Books Inc., 1983.

Cover:

Startide Rising (The Uplift Saga, Book 2) | Science Book a Day

 

La Machine – France

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On New Years Day I was visiting Toulouse, France with my dad and we went to a museum hosting the work of the group La Machine, a “street theater” group that creates large-scale machinery for performance. The group’s creations remind me a lot of the steampunk genre of sci-fi we talked about briefly in class, which features retro steam-powered machines over more modern, electronic ones.

Their website has tons of information about and images of their works: a giant spider which was part of a performance through the streets of Toulouse, their newest design “Heron Tree” and many more. I’m fascinated by how the group incorporates the steampunk aesthetic into so many different aspects of performance (giant animals, natural objects and musical instruments to name a few). The site describes the animals as performers which “feed an unusual vision of theatre, reading movement as a language, and in turn a source of emotion. The operators, engines, animals and musicians intermingle, confront and tune in with each other, thus creating images that change our relationship with the city, suddenly transformed.”

They have so many projects it’s impossible to capture them all in one post. On my visit to the museum, I was lucky enough to ride on this giant centaur they had created out of wood and machinery. It was extremely detailed (you can see the steam coming from its nostrils, the chest moved up and down as it “breathed” etc.) and it moved around the property, operated by two individuals who used VR and motion sensors so the machine would mimic their movement.

There’s so many other intriguing parts of the museum and I highly suggest checking out the site for a bit (especially their musical performances). I thought this group and their work really connects to this class and expands the steampunk genre into the theater/performance realm. We haven’t seen many live performance pieces (other than Defekt, of course) so I thought I would share their super unique work!

Star Trek

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Photoshopped/ digital art of different Star Trek characters.

Created using Photoshop and Procreate. Original character images found on getty images.

“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before!”

After about the fifth time my parents laughed at a reference in a movie and brushed it off as “oh it’s a reference to Star Trek,” I demanded they introduce me to the iconic show. My mom picked out her favorite episode in the Original Series, “The Trouble with Tribbles” and I was hooked. Nine years later and I’m taking a Science Fiction class as a senior in college all because of those pesky tribbles. I may not know how to speak Klingon or have a cosplay costume ready to go in my closet, but I have come to the conclusion, alongside many others, that Star Trek is the greatest science fiction franchise of all time. It continues to stand the test of time with the current Star Trek canon including eleven TV series (with more on the way) and thirteen feature films. But why is it so great?

Star Trek, to its core, embodies hope. It’s had a purposeful mission from the beginning, not only to boldly go where no one has gone before, but to show viewers that the future can be good. It portrays an optimistic vision of humanities future where the defining characteristic of humans are our curiosity. In this vision, humans are dedicated to science and exploration, of both space and themselves. Star Trek imagines an Earth without war, poverty, or pollution where technology works FOR us rather than against us. The current geopolitical tensions that rule our world’s governments are described as petty squabbles that have been solved and left behind in humanities’ dark past. Star Trek shows how peace and discussion are far more interesting than war and violence. Differences are respected and actively depicted as good. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek was invested in showing how humanities strength lies in our differences.

Star Trek has embraced diversity from the beginning, not only in the stories but in casting. In the Original Series, Nichelle Nichol’s Uhura and George Takei’s Sulu were main officers on the bridge. As the first black woman in a position of respect and power on an American television series, Uhura was unprecedented in 1966. Famous endorsements of Uhura came from Martin Luther King Jr. encouraging Nichols to continue playing the role after the first season and Whoopi Goldberg who was inspired as a nine-year-old watching the show for the first time. Ahead of its time, the 1968 kiss between the Uhura and Kirk is, among much debate, often cited as the first interracial kiss on television. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine put a black man in charge through Avery Brooke’s Sisko and the next series Star Trek: Voyager has Kate Mulgrew’s Janeway as a female captain of the crew.

The franchise came into itself on television in a time where special effects were limited and so although most of Star Trek is in space, it devotes itself to talk over action. While the more recent series and films can take advantage of incredible special effects to give viewers the space battles and martial arts scenes we want, at its core the focus is still on asking big questions. Each episode and movie explore different philosophical issues. What does it mean to be human, Klingon, Vulcan, non-corporeal, immortal or an android? With many hours to explore ideas and questions, Star Trek tackles a wide variety of themes and tells many different types of stories such as mysteries, romances, horror stories, spy stories, workplace drama, family stories, and so many more. Many episodes explore emotions. What are they, when or how do we give into them, repress them, or make use of them? Vulcans repress them through their pursuit of pure logical thinking, while Data, a perfectly logical android seeks to be more human and emotional like his friends. Star Trek: The Next Generation has two regular characters who function as therapists for the crew, Deanna Troi as ship counselor and Whoopi Goldberg’s Guinan as the wise and ageless bartender.

Something that always stood out to me was how the characters of the show are “cool” because they are intelligent and good at what they do, not because of wealth or looks. They are curious and ask questions, determined and passionate about what they do. In their pursuit of interplanetary goodwill and space exploration, they unapologetically ask “why?” and “what if?” As the resident Trekkie of the class, I wanted to share why I love it and continue to go back to it. Star Trek embraces the awe and wonder of the universe that is at the core of what science fiction means to me.

** If you want to get into the franchise but don’t want to watch eleven series and thirteen films, I recommend watching the recent trilogy that features a younger version of the original crew in a different timeline! The cinematography, special effects and music is stunning! (Star Trek, Star Trek: Into Darkness, and Star Trek: Beyond)

Sources/ inspiration for this post:

Roddenberry, Gene. Star Trek. 1966-present.

Lloyd, Robert. “’Star Trek’ Is the Greatest Sci-Fi Franchise of All. Why It’s Stood the Test of Time.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 28 Oct. 2021.

Marvel Cinematic Universe and H.G. Well’s Law

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H. G. Well’s Law states that a science fiction or fantasy story should contain only one extraordinary assumption. This law has always fascinated me and been something I love to think about whenever I watch or read science fiction or fantasy, and though some people don’t like restrictions such as this one when it comes to writing fiction, for me it makes the impossible seem just a little more plausible. In Harry Potter magic exists in secret. In Star Wars everything tales place in a galaxy far, far away. And I can’t even count the number of stories that take place after some apocalyptic event has occurred or is about to occur. However, every time I watch a Marvel Avengers movie combining a multitude of stories and characters, I can’t help but think, “Does Marvel not follow this law?” Marvel even adapted H.G. Well’s book The Invisible Man into a comic, but the Avengers still colors way outside of the lines of his law. If we look at each story separately they all appear to work within the confines of the law: Spiderman is bit by a radioactive spider, Captain America is injected with a super serum, and Iron Man is a genius with a ridiculous amount of money. But when they all come together and the crazy powers of superheroes such as Doctor Strange are combined with aliens in Guardians of the Galaxy, things get a little dicey. When creating Avengers movies, the Marvel Cinematic Universe creates a lot of extraordinary assumptions for the understandable purpose of creating a lot of money and captivating their audiences. Stan Lee’s mind was insanely impressive to come up with all of the storylines in his comics and I will always hold him in high standing for that, but while watching Avengers movies I can’t help but feel as if it all is a little too unbelievable.