Books read in the last few months

[myrdschaem]

What it says on the tin! I will go through my thoughts.

Science Fiction After 1900. From the Steam Man to the Stars. by Brooks Landon. This is part of the series "Genres in Context" from Routledge, which gave Science Fiction two volumes. I finished the other one a while ago. Overall a good scholarly introduction for first hand sources, at least for me. Focus is on literature (I came away with a lot of recs, as planned) and mostly on English language scifi, with one chapter focusing on soviet writings. The volume for before 1900 deals more with French and a bit European scifi.

I would have liked more outside these trodden paths, but Landon was frank about the limitation and pointed to other sources. It at least gave me a good handle on the broad streams within the genre context. These were published mid-90s, so nothing about the last 25 years. Final hat-tip for broad overview was the mention of K/S as a vibrant field that got many women interested in scifi.

Some asides I found interesting: 1. Didn't know Isaac Asimov was American or at least wrote in English? Somehow I assumed otherwise. 2. There was apparently some popular, probably very dated genre of novels focusing on engineer inventor genius wunderkind having adventures in the Wild West. If that isn't the foundation Tony Stark was build on, I would eat my hair, though I suspect people into Iron Man already know about these. 3. James Tiptree Jr. was apparently a pseud taken for a man that was actually a woman publishing under it, with a whole dramatic public reveal. But some of the talk made me wonder if that is how she would class her gender now and what her personal feelings on that were. She also killed her disabled husband in a double suicide, which is just pure ableism and I'm unsure how much I want to look into her after all.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Translator Marie Boroff, Norton Critical Edition. The poem was an entire delight, Marie's translation is amazing. There are several parts where we learn how Thicc and Daddy the Green Knight and the Baron are and they are rendered beautifully! Really great! The back portion also included excerpts from several critical essays about it. They gave context which was helpful, however some I got stuck in for a while. First offender the fucking numerology essay, which I doubt I understood in any way, but this is also not my preferred way to analyse. Getting through them all was the main challenge for me. I'm glad I did so I can watch the movie during the Christmas holidays. Overall great supplements though and I recommend this edition and translation.

Andymon. Eine Weltraum-Utopie by Angela and Karlheinz Steinmüller. One of the recs I extracted from the Scifi genre book! I don't think this has ever been translated into English, sadly. This was written in the late GDR and while some censorship/thematic rules still applied, I don't think the pressure was as high as it could have been. For general plot, it's the story of a "generational" spaceship of a sort reaching a planet to live on. It's not truly generational, rather the several eight kid batches get produced timed to be grown when they arrive, raised by androids.

It's indeed an utopia, but a socialist-realism one. Eventually life on Andymon is possible, but there are many steps between. The planet is at first completely unlivable and needs slow terraforming that takes years. That it's not decades is the utopia imo. Things don't go harmoniously between groups. There is one batch that settles on a moon, links up their brains into one higher intelligence and just stays there alone for years. As the siblings slowly settle on planet, a difference between the older batches raised in the starship and the younger ones that were only fully grown down on the planet becomes steeper. The younger ones are more likely to reject some technology, want natural births and focus on the current planet, while the generations raised in spaceship have a unified approach of everyone working towards one goal. Decision making is very consensus based and a focus on convincing factions.

Some other things I think are at least in some way part of the socialist-realism part: There is at least the attempt for racial equality. The children that get raised are marked as not all white and it's mostly not a big deal. Only when reliving experiences from the former Earth the children do see the category, ending in one white sibling saying they don't want to be white. So it's blatant in the intent there, however execution might be lacking in some ways. I think maybe subconsciously some of the patterns get reproduced by the authors, like Alfa, oldest sister and black, being described as motherly to an extend and ending up in a bit of a caregiver role. Ups.

Another thing is the treatment of a sort of addiction to the VR machines. One sibling spends all their time there and refuses to come out. They try to talk him out of it, can't and decide to "treat" him while he stays inside for a while.

The book is also pretty heteronormative, in that it is assumed that female and male pairings of two will pair up and stay that way, though there is one instance of breaking up. Queerness just wasn't considered for this book.

All in all I did enjoy it. It's a rare book to not rely on violence, though there is some friction in the end. As noted, several different cores of societies form in the end and it's open ended how the small established villages will fare.

Foundation 1-3 by Isaac Asimov. Also something I chose for better science fiction overview. I read these in german as I picked them up at some flea market a while back. I enjoyed one most, because while soft scifi it's both rooted in reality somewhat and the gambits and schemes made sense. Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation relied a lot more on the "Mule" character (funnily enough, for some reason the german translators just renamed him the Fox. ah, to be a mediocre man with the self-confidence etc etc) that was specified as a mind-influencing mutant. This pivot in the more fantastical turned out to be more ableism relying on chestnuts like an "idiot savant" and "freak" nature. Bo-oring. The later two have some female characters, which is at least more than the first one, but nothing ground breaking here.

Selam Berlin by Yadé Kara. Also in german and never got an english translation, I think. A coming of age novel about a young turkish man raised between Berlin and Istanbul. As the Wall falls, he decides to move to Berlin to become more of his own person. The father had a successful travel agency that had connections to the GDR and facilitated travel for them and turkish workers in West Berlin. It turns out that the father had a second family with a illegitimate son in East Berlin, leading to strife in the family and all sorts of chaos. 

This is a torn between different cultures set up and struggles with identity. They aren't in your face and Hasan/Hansi gives no clear answers for a solution. Different characters have different views and position and approach the topic in different ways. The setting and side characters are amazing for me. All of them are persons and some are extra in a way where maybe I wouldn't want to meet but enjoyed the story.

The commitment to no easy answers or lessons also brings some difficulty, because even our pov character isn't necessarily likable or relatable at all times. Since this is a capital-L Literature book in some ways, the main character learns about the Berlin Wall falling with his parents in the room, hiding a boner in his pants and having a black out orgasm. If that scene description doesn't make you run for the hills, it's a good ride overall.

Dune by Frank Herbert. Read this so I can watch the movie only for a full lockdown to close cinemas. XD

Idk what to say, it's Dune. I admit I knew some snippets of plot points thanks to metal songs. I enjoyed it a lot I think.The world building is amazing, though some of it is just using Islamic vocabulary in the future. The focus on how important water is feels true. All the steps to pay attention to, slow and steady as virtues... P. pointed out that it was published three years after Lawrence of Arabia and as an anti-thesis in some regards. I agree with other, smarter people that there is an anti-colonialist message in it, though the execution does lack because Paul, Jessica and Kynes are elevated to leaders of the indigenous Fremen.

The other strongest part was the syncretic religions after thousand of years. Also very fitting for the time where interest into buddhism, hinduism and zen were huge. I'm an atheist, so I'm also super interested in how religion works. This is a pretty good demonstration of the theoretical here: building communities in adversity, transporting best practics over many generations and so on.

There were some parts that didn't age well. Baron Harkonnen stands out as an example for fatphobia and homophobia, as there are implications he is into young boys. The usual decadence is rotting from within. It's probably debatable how the women come off. For some, the focus on the soft power of the Bene Gesserit is probably empowering, but there is also a lot of focus spend on reproductive abilities with the breeding program. I assume it was better than others for the time and while Jessica and Chani are fleshed out as people and have some agency, it is overall limited.

I don't know yet if I will read the rest, though the monster fucker is at least intrigued by the human-sandworm hybrid stuff in one later installment. I'm glad I read this one for sure! There is just so much it clearly influenced, from Star Wars to Assassin's Creed to Double Agent Vader.

What I am reading next: Started Svetlana Alexievich's book on Chernobyl, german version. I'm maybe 1/4 in and it punches hard, like the other book I read by her. It's straight up interviews with people from there. I'm learning a bit and feeling a lot. There is human deaths which punched me already and animal deaths too. Not easy reading, despite the speed I'm chewing through it.

Comments

[schneefink]

Wait, the original name for the Fox is "Mule"? xD Quite a change!
I read the third Foundation book several times and it took me a while to figure out what I loved about it: the last "Second Foundation" story has such a nice betrayal / h/c - scene, I appreciated that even then :) (Though maybe it's better in my memory, idk it's been many years.)

[myrdschaem]

So the internet tells me at least! Apparently because Mules are sterile as well, though how they would know that when naming him idk.

Oh, which scene were you thinking off? The parts with the underground on Terminus maybe? I can see that being a betrayal of sorts.

[schneefink]

Yes, the scene "we now have a device that will reveal secret agents from the Second Foundation, I will now turn it on just to test it, oops it turns out it is one of our friends who is now writhing on the floor in agony and begging us not to use it again," and then the interrogation and later the reveal that it was a ruse, beautiful.

...now I sort of want fic. Dammit. Maybe I should reread it.

[myrdschaem]

Oh yeah! He predicted that, I think, because first he shows a fake device, let's the mole test it and then uses the real one. That was tense, I could get into that going sexy/scary.

[schneefink]

Yess, that was good. I was more thinking of angst but yes it could go several different ways :)

[myrdschaem]

Angst is good too! But yeah, that scene had some nice tension.