Review: The Claw of the Conciliator by Gene Wolfe

There is something hypnotic about Gene Wolfe’s prose in The Claw of the Conciliator. And when he lets his imagination loose, all kinds of weird and surprising things happen. The Claw of the Conciliator is a good book, an improvement over the previous book, but it is still frustrating at times.

At first I was afraid it would degenerate into a tedious Star Wars styled rebel vs. imperium narrative. But things quickly get much more complicated and I was as confused as our hero Severian over what’s going on. That’s a good thing.

There are two stories within the story of the novel: the legend of the man who was formed from dreams, and the play put on by Severian and his companions. Severian encounters aliens, robots, and humans from his Urth’s future. Despite all this thrashing about the novel works for the most part. The biggest complaint I have, other than the occasional descent into abstraction, is that there are a few to many conventions of the SF genre that are imposed upon the story.

The image that is trapped in my mind is from a scene where Severian is shown a book that is actually window into distant space. Within he sees a titanic figure moving against a field of stars. The vision overwhelms him, causing blood to seep out of the pores of his forehead. What does it mean? Who knows. And that’s kind of how the book is. Captivating but also challenging and hard to understand.

Book Review: The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe

I didn’t know what to expect when I started reading this bizarre SF/Fantasy novel — it’s technically science fiction, but it conforms to the conventions of a fantasy adventure novel — and it’s rather fascinating. It was written back in the early 80s when Lord of the Rings and Star Wars had yet to completely overwhelm the genre. It was a time when SF was still a niche pastime in which only weirdos indulged. The Shadow of the Torturer is remarkably weird.

It takes place in a far future Earth (called Urth). The moon is green being shrouded in forests, the mid-day sky is indigo blue as the sun has grown dim, and the characters live in a vast city full of ancient technology and fantastic structures which no one understands or fully comprehends and which may as well be magic.

There are two main parts to the novel. The first is a detailed description of our protagonist Severian as he studies to become a journeyman torturer. This part of the novel is a very involved exploration of the world Severian inhabits. It’s important because the world he lives in is very foreign. It also sets the tone, which is dark. Everything from the sky to what little humor exists is dark. The torturers wear clothes of the color fugilin, which is described as being darker than black. The narrative voice is as dense and oppressive as the scenarios being described.

The second part of the novel, when Severian has started his quest to travel beyond the city, wastes much of that initial world building, unfortunately. It takes Severian the last half of the book just to get to the city’s borders (it’s a very big city) and his adventures seem haphazardly constructed, episodic, and random after the fashion of a mediocre sword and sorcery novel. This was a big letdown after the fantastic build up of the first half.

The book ends on a cliffhanger and the prose and the setting are sufficiently intoxicating that I’m going to give the sequel a try. Despite the missteps in the second half of the novel, there’s really nothing like The Shadow of the Torturer.

Book Review: Tarzan's Quest by Edgar Rice Burroughs

These late model Tarzan books are proving to be consistently good.

Jane makes her first appearance in 10 novels, since Tarzan and the Golden Lion. This is also the first mention of any of Tarzan’s family members in 9 novels, since Tarzan and the Ant Men. I was beginning to think that Mr. Burroughs was trying to imply that there was some kind of separation or that Tarzan had regressed so much to his pre-civilized days that he never left the jungle anymore.

The book starts with Tarzan investigating the mysterious disappearance of young girls in the jungle and Jane returning to Africa by plane. Jane’s plane coincidentally crashes in the vicinity of Tarzan’s investigations. And so commence two parallel narratives that only come together in the action packed conclusion.

Jane is portrayed as a leader and capable jungle survivor, climbing around in the trees, making her own weapons, and calmly staring down a charging leopard with nothing but her hand made bow. It was refreshing to see this side of Jane. Alas, she does revert to damsel in distress eventually. And ERB has a tendency to refer to her as a girl even though she and Tarzan are grandparents.

Though there is a weird epilogue that I suspect will address this issue going forward.

Review: Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

I have to start by saying that Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee is a poorly written book. I re-read To Kill a Mockingbird just prior to reading its follow-up. And comparing the two brings the former’s flaws into painfully sharp relief. It reads like a rough-draft. And it turns out that’s all it was.

Never has a book needed a ghost writer more than this newly published collection of anecdotes and flashbacks that spends the first hundred pages flailing around in search of a reason to exist.

The content, however, is rather interesting. First it’s important to realize this book is a rough-draft of a story that eventually turned into To Kill a Mockingbird. There a numerous subtle inconsistencies with the book it turned into. Having said that, it’s fun to read about Scout as an adult. In To Kill a Mockingbird she was a sort of idealized child, like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. Such creations aren’t realistic children, but they are the kind of children we wish were realistic. As a result seeing Scout as an adult with a career and a love life is weird but humanizing.

And that is probably the best thing about Go Set a Watchman, the characters from To Kill a Mockingbird are transformed from platonic ideals to normal people. It’s heartbreaking to see fallings out between Atticus, Calpurnia, and Scout because they have come to us through the decades as icons and saints. That’s also one reason why this book was probably never finished and published before. You can’t give Gregory Peck an Oscar and then reduce Atticus to something merely human.

One of the themes that strikes me most from To Kill a Mockingbird is how we are all stuck living together in the same world, and we have to find a way to get along: majorities, minorities, those who are “colorblind”, and even those who are racist. These themes are more fully explored in Go Set a Watchman, and probably more important as part of our contemporary dialogue than anything we read in To Kill a Mockingbird which is why I wish the book had was actually well written.

Sorry, But There Are No Good Science Fiction Movies

Some thought inspired from watching the Ender's Game movie trailer...

I'm a long time fan of science fiction literature.  I remember when I first discovered the SF section of the public library.  I could have set up a tent and lived there.

But one thing I've learned in time is that SF literature is a very different beast from SF movies.  For a SF movie to be popular it has to follow the the Star Wars mold: plucky humans fighting against tyranny.  Blah.  I mean, it's okay ever once and a while, but even the new Star Trek movies -- the original series, for all its campiness, being the closest to the feel and style of literary SF that has even been broadcast on TV -- has become more like Star Wars.

In order to get an idea of how different literary SF is from movie SF peruse these following links.  These are all the Hugo and Nebula award winners for best novel.  (The Hugo and Nebula, if you didn't know, are to SF literature what the Academy Awards are to movies.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula_award_for_best_novel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Novel

Do you recognize any of the titles?  Care to guess how many have been made into movies?  Here's my quick count in case you don't have the time.

By my count here are the winners that have been made into movies:

• Dune (Nebula award winner)
• Flowers for Algernon (Nebula award winner)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Hugo award winner and biggest sellout ever)
• Starship Troopers (Hugo award winner)
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Retroactive Hugo award winner)
• Fahrenheit 451 (Retroactive Hugo award winner)

If we include nominees we can add the following novels to the list:

•  Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep? (the movie was called Blade Runner)
• Slaughter House 5
• The Postman
• The Handmaid's Tales
• A Game of Thrones
• A Clash of Kings
• Cloud Atlas
• Children of Dune
• 2010: Odyssey Two

And that's it.  They've been handing Hugos out yearly since 1958 and Nebulas have been awarded since 1965. If you only include those movies that were actually popular or even critically acclaimed the list gets much shorter.

The problem gets compounded when you realize some of the worst movies on this list are nothing like the books they were based on in either tone or content.  Not only are those SF movies based on great SF literature bad, they mislead the viewer concerning what SF literature is actually like.  Who on earth would want to read any of David Brin's work after seeing such a miserable movie as The Postman.  Not only is The Postman novel great, but Brin's Startide Rising is one of the greatest SF novels of all time (and it will even appeal to those of you who like your SF in the Star Wars fashion).

For those of you not familiar with SF literature here's a few recommendations to get a feel for the genre.  These books can be found on the list of award winners and nominees linked to earlier.

• Have Spacesuit -- Will Travel
• Dune
• Lord of Light
• Ring World
• Rendezvous With Rama
• Neuromancer
• Startide Rising
• Ender's Game
• Red Mars
• The Diamond Age

 And while I'm at it, here's an exhaustive list of movies I have watched that do the best job at capturing the feel of SF literature:

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Alien
• Bladerunner
• Primer
• The Fountain

There are some other good SF movie, after all Star Wars is a great flick, but they don't come close to capturing the style found in SF literature.

So, back to the Ender's Game movie.  I'm very concerned that the movie will be reduced to Hollywood pablum.  The story is disturbing and the ending is painful.  I can't imagine Hollywood being willing to do it straight.  I also heard they mixed in some of Ender's Shadow into the movie which changes the tone significantly (and not in a good way in my opinion).  I'll watch it, but with trepidation.

Mormons' Dismissive View of Theology

Terryl Givens once asked a big-wig at Deseret Book why they didn't publish more books on Mormon theology.  The response to his question was something along the lines of, "Well why don't you write one and if we like it we'll publish it."

This story highlights a weird trait about Mormonism.  Despite being very religious and spending a great deal of time reading scripture, they don't concern themselves much with theology at least as a systematic rational analysis of the word of God.  Sure, every Mormon is an amateur Theologian, but regarding official systematized theology, there's very little of it.  There's never been an Augustine of Hippo in Mormonism and never will be.

As far as official statements go, Mormon theology is very limited.  If you want to know every thing Mormons officially believe you only have to read James E. Talmage's Articles of Faith and Jesus The Christ.  Of course, these aren't nearly as useful for making straw man attacks against Mormonism as The Journal of Discourses or Mormon Doctrine and so aren't as widely known outside of Mormonism.

So if Mormons don't actually believe that many things why is The Journal of Discourses 26 volumes long and why doesn't Sunday School get boring?  As Matthew Bowman said: "There is a great deal which Mormons might believe; there is very little that they must believe."  (Actually his whole article is a great read: Why Is It So Hard to Figure Out What Mormons Believe?)

And this gets to the heart of Mormonism and it's extreme egalitarianism.  Not only can any Mormon be a prophet and theologian, they are encouraged to do so.

Joanna Brooks on the Daily Show

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-9-2012/joanna-brooks

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