Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Shikasta (Canopus in Argos #1)

3.77 of 5 stars 3.77 · rating details · 869 ratings · 88 reviews

The benevolent galactic empire Canopus colonises a young planet they call Rohanda, the fruitful. They nurture its humanoids by introducing superior creatures from other colonised planets to teach & speed evolution. Some aliens also breed with natives to strengthen Rohanda's gene pool. When Rohanda is ready, Canopus imposes a Lock linking it to the harmonious strength...more The benevolent galactic empire Canopus colonises a young planet they call Rohanda, the fruitful. They nurture its humanoids by introducing superior creatures from other colonised planets to teach & speed evolution. Some aliens also breed with natives to strengthen Rohanda's gene pool. When Rohanda is ready, Canopus imposes a Lock linking it to the harmonious strength of the Canopean Empire. The link is established by energy transmissions from stone formations built in native settlements.
In addition to Canopus, two other empires establish a presence: Sirius & Puttiora. Canopus' allied Sirians confine themselves to genetic experiments on southern continents during Rohanda's prehistory (cf. Sirian Experiments), while the Shammat of Puttiora wait for opportunities to spread evil.
For millennia Rohandans prosper in a Canopean induced climate of peaceful accelerated development. Then an unforeseen cosmic realignment puts Rohanda out of phase with Canopus causing the Lock to break. Deprived of Canopus's resources & a steady stream of SOWF (substance-of-we-feeling), the natives develop a degenerative disease that puts individual goals ahead of communal. The Shammat exploit this disturbance & begin undermining Canopus' influence by infecting natives with their ways. Rohanda degenerates into greed & conflict. The Canopeans reluctantly change its name to Shikasta, the stricken.
To salvage Canopus's plans for Shikasta & correct the natives' decline, Canopean agents are sent. Johor is one such emissary, who takes on a native form & begins identifying those individuals who haven't degenerated too far to be amenable to corrective instruction. Johor then sends those he's successfully converted to spread the word. Soon isolated communities begin to return to pre-Shikastian ways. But without the strength of the Lock, Canopus is fighting a losing battle. The planet declines.
By the 20th century, Shikasta has degenerated into self-destructive war. Johor returns, but this time thru Zone 6[b] from which he's incarnated as a Shikastian, George Sherban. As Sherban grows up he contacts other Canopeans in disguise & then resumes trying to help the Shikastians. Famine & unemployment grow, anarchy spreads. Sherban plays a prominent role in Youth Movements, striving for reconciliation amongst the youth.
On the eve of WWIII Sherban & other emissaries relocate a small number of promising Shikastians to remote locations to escape a coming nuclear holocaust. The war reduces the population by 99%, sweeping the planet clean of barbarians. The Shammat, who set the Shikastians on a course of self-destruction, self-destruct & withdraw. The Canopeans help survivors rebuild their lives & realign with Canopus. With a strengthened Lock & SOWF flowing freely again, harmony & prosperity return.(less)

cloth, 365 pages

Published 1979 by Alfred A. Knopf

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books

475th out of 2,977 books — 12,611 voters

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Most Difficult Novels

108th out of 269 books — 1,138 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 1,815)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Jun 06, 2008 Kersplebedeb rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people with a tolerance for preachiness and slow plots.

Shelves: science-fiction

i first read Shikasta fifteen years ago, and found it fantastic but very difficult. Rereading it now i felt differently, it was both a lot easier but also a lot less impressive.

A white woman who grew up in Zimbabwe back when it was Rhodesia become a nobel laureate in literature last year. Amongst her reactions were something like "what took you so long" and "my science fiction was my most important work."

Shikasta is the first book in Lessing's science fiction series, and it is very much a long,...more i first read Shikasta fifteen years ago, and found it fantastic but very difficult. Rereading it now i felt differently, it was both a lot easier but also a lot less impressive.

A white woman who grew up in Zimbabwe back when it was Rhodesia become a nobel laureate in literature last year. Amongst her reactions were something like "what took you so long" and "my science fiction was my most important work."

Shikasta is the first book in Lessing's science fiction series, and it is very much a long, at times moving at times embarrassing examination of colonialism, oppression, and what Christians (of which Lessing is not one) would term the "fall from grace". This is not a zippy action tale, there is no clever word-play or mind bending concepts, rather this book is Lessing's indictment of all of human history, and of human beings propensity to hurt and mistreat one another and the world we live in. It climaxes with an actual trial in which the "white race" stands accused of all the crimes of euro-imperialism, and ends with most of humanity being killed in some kind of war, the few survivors returning to a state of grace as "Shammat" (Lessing's stand-in for the Devil) retreats from the planet.

There's lots in here, but not a lot which is great. Some descriptions are quite evocative, the build-up in which we are introduced to Shikasta (that's the alien's name for Earth) prior to the fall from grace, all this is very well done, though with a lot of loopy politics.

i feel bad giving this book three stars - it really felt like several books within one volume, and the first third (describing Shikasta's fall from paradise, so to speak) and the last sixty pages (basically from the Trial on) were four-five star material (and i rarely give five stars) - unfortunately what came between, the case studies and Rachel Sherban's journal, were more like one-two star material.

This book is not one i would recommend to most people. You have to have high tolerance for a kind of shameless self-righteousness and earnestness normally associated with teenaged angst. i consider myself to have much less problem with that stuff than most people, but still at times i felt embarrassed for Lessing.

On the other hand, it is an interesting period-piece, both ahead of its time and also mired in how things looked thirty years ago. In many ways the world is following pretty much the path Lessing prochesied, in some ways it seems even worst off.(less)

6 likes · like · see review

May 11, 2013 Maryann rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1001

Shikasta is a planet, originally called Rohanda, that has been colonized by aliens. Well, they don't call themselves aliens, because it's told from their perspective, but the book is a collection of narrative, letters, reports and quotes from the alien history books regarding Earth, er, I mean, Shikasta. Why the name change from Rohanda to Shikasta? Because the colony started to destroy itself and get violent and exploit the land and each other, due to the influence of Shammat, another alien pla...more

like · see review

Jan 17, 2013 Jessica Andersen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: dystopian, sci-fi

I went back and forth over whether I liked this book. It was slow to get going, and once it got going was not necessarily heavy on plot as much as heavy on social commentary. It tells the story of Earth, from a science fiction worthy beginning (the planet being stewarded by a benevolent alien race), through the horrors of war in the 20th Century.

The book was written in 1979, so much of the last part of the book is speculation, and reasonable speculation based on what was happening in the world...more

like · see review

Nov 18, 2012 Mikael Kuoppala rated it 3 of 5 stars

The first volume in Doris Lessing's much praised sci-fi quintet is a truly curious piece of literature. I almost hesitate to call it a novel, due to its erratic structure. Lessing's style here brings to mind Virginia Woolf, early Jack Vance and most of all William S. Burroughs. "Shikasta" is very much like "The Naked Lunch" even though its sci-fi setting creates a bit more congruence between the individual stories, manifesto's, apologies and philosophical as well as mythological deconstructions...more The first volume in Doris Lessing's much praised sci-fi quintet is a truly curious piece of literature. I almost hesitate to call it a novel, due to its erratic structure. Lessing's style here brings to mind Virginia Woolf, early Jack Vance and most of all William S. Burroughs. "Shikasta" is very much like "The Naked Lunch" even though its sci-fi setting creates a bit more congruence between the individual stories, manifesto's, apologies and philosophical as well as mythological deconstructions the whole of the book is composed of. There are a lot of familiar aspects of anthropological science fiction present, but this time the culture examined isn't an imagined one but our very own human civilization. I'm still not sure if that's commendably sharp and direct or just simplistic and easy. After all, the power of speculative fiction lies in its ability to analyze cultural phenomena taken out of their politically bound context, hopefully resulting in unbiased and fresh conclusions.

There are enough original thoughts and themes in "Shikasta" for several books; it's packed with innovation and wisdom. But there are so very many obvious and underwhelming ingredients present alongside all the good stuff that even the most ingenious sparks of creative force are diluted and fail to impress with their full potential. And the fact that the book is a collection of fictious reports, often authentically dry, makes it a bit heavy. Even though some of the chapters are very interesting and entertaining- and Lessing's talent as a storyteller is apparent on many pages- the lack of coherence disrupts the novel as a whole. I guess I can even say that readability isn't one of "Shikasta's" numerous virtues.

Still, after all the criticism I must state that I found this odd acquaintance a surprisingly pleasant and satisfying read. It will probably be very hard to find a book that equals this magnitude of dryish weirdness. Worth trying out, if you dare. And if this proves to be too much for you, don't hesitate to try the other, completely standalone volumes in the "Canopus in Argos" quintet, they are much more focused and literary in form.(less)

like · see review

Aug 19, 2012 Kevin Mackey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book shortly after it was first published. I've since finished re-reading it in its eBook form.

It was hard. But then, Lessing's "Briefing for a Descent into Hell" was hard, and worth the trouble.

Shikasta was then, and remains, a book of huge scope. It runs across all of human history, adding in pre-history and moving forward beyond today and into the future.

As I read it I fancied I discovered echoes of "The Four-Gated City", the final book in Lessing's Children of Violence series. I...more

like · see review

Jun 25, 2012 Nathaniel rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: politics, religion, sci-fi, refused-to-finish

This book is so terrible that I added a new shelf: "refused-to-finish". It has managed to supplant Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson as the worst book I've had the misfortune to encounter (and this includes Breaking Dawn!).

The main problem with this book is that the writing is bad. Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize in literature for this series, so I had high hopes that at a minimum the prose would be good. It's not. Not even a little bit. There have been precisely two moments in the 156 pages I...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jan 20, 2012 Corie Ralston rated it 2 of 5 stars

I've read some critics's reviews of Shikasta which suggest that the book is different from most science fiction in that it has well developed characters and a deeply meaningful plot. (!) Of course, the critics still hated the fact that Doris Lessing "demeaned" herself by writing science fiction at all, so I guess no one can win. I really wanted to love this book because it is so highly regarded and a friend of mine loved it, but those were in fact the only reasons I finished it. The first hundre...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 05, 2011 Ian Reed rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Where Science Fiction Goes Wrong.

Shikasta Re: Colonised Planet 5
By Doris Lessing
Alfred A. Knopf Inc.
New York 1979

I walked into my reading of Doris Lessing’s Shikasta Re: Colonised Planet 5 with a unprecedented optimism for a book and author I had neither heard of or read about before. I have read many science fiction books and even taken a class on the type of fiction before. Cracking open the book and reading into the beginning portion I saw the speculative Science fiction elements, planetary...more Where Science Fiction Goes Wrong.

Shikasta Re: Colonised Planet 5
By Doris Lessing
Alfred A. Knopf Inc.
New York 1979

I walked into my reading of Doris Lessing’s Shikasta Re: Colonised Planet 5 with a unprecedented optimism for a book and author I had neither heard of or read about before. I have read many science fiction books and even taken a class on the type of fiction before. Cracking open the book and reading into the beginning portion I saw the speculative Science fiction elements, planetary travel and conquest, a seemingly non-corporeal group of beings governing and leading studies into a strange foreign planet. Later on when it’s revealed that this planet, Shikasta, is actually Earth the novel still held true to the speculative side of science fiction novels. But despite all these factors of what makes up my favorite sub-genre, I found my optimism dashed before I really got into the grit of the book. Sure Shikasta Re: Colonised Planet 5 maybe science fiction, but it’s not terribly good science fiction. In fact, I’d go as far as saying it’s not entirely fiction at all.

Having no prior knowledge about Lessing’s style, I went into the book being able to read it for what it was, as an isolated entity of fiction and not as some bigger part of a writer’s career. I found to my disgust as I read through the beginning that the whole thing was written in the form of either letters or a field report. At first, the idea was novel because the character, Johar, was, in all extensive purposes, a surveyor of the planet’s growth and development, sent to facilitate and monitor it. But the novelty of it grew old, as early as 50 pages in and it left me wondering what the rest of the book was like. A serious problem I have with this book, and Lessing’s choice on how to write it, is it’s written in this bland and boring non-fictional medium. A simple survey to a couple of passer-bier’s could yield you that consensus that anyone having to read a field report or some kind of formal document would find it boring and uninteresting. Yet Lessing wrote the entire book as this long report of Johar’s and in the form of some letters. Granted the letters aren’t as bad as the report. Still though, I found myself hard pressed to get through the book entirely because it just seemed to drag on and on. At one point seemingly coming to a stand still for commentary on I suppose what was the development of Earth and our primordial civilizations, I had trouble really paying attention because it was so bland.

Lessing’s imagery in the beginning was spectacular, despite the boring, almost non-existent plot. I really got a feel for the way the cities and forests were set up, and if the story hadn’t lead me into an uncaring state, I’m sure I would’ve enjoyed the later parts of the story as well and their setting description. If only Lessing hadn’t made the story a report of Shikasta/Earth’s growth and commentary on practically a single race’s historical contributions to the sad state of humanity then maybe the science fiction elements could have really played in and made the story worthwhile. There is nothing wrong with a science fiction novel, or a fictional novel in general, being a commentary on a single race or humanity, but the problem was how it was executed in this novel.

As a wrap up, the story was bad because it didn’t read like a story at all, my expectations for a compelling and fascinating science fiction novel were crushed, and I find myself taking away a few lessons about fiction writing that would have seemed self evident as tactics that don’t particularly work when it comes to trying to write: fiction, science fiction, a commentary on humanity, or whatever. Shikasta Re: Colonised Planet 5 was a disappointment and I don’t plan to read anything else from this particular series.(less)

like · see review

Feb 03, 2013 Nathan Titus rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: everything-and-nothing, sci-fi, philosophy

This is absolutely the most janky book I have ever read.

from the 1st Dictionary of Nate:
janky--JANE-key (adjective); 1: thrown together at random; patchwork. 2: containing multiple elements, many of which contradict each other, and some that are mutually exclusive 3:top-heavy; lurching randomly in every direction at once 4:aspirations beyond achievement, and/or aspirations that are impossible to achieve 5:distinctive in being completely psychotic 6:something designed over the course of eons by a...more

like · see review

Sep 05, 2010 David C. Mueller rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf-misc-authors

This novel is the first of Lessing's classic "Canopus in Argos: Archives" series. It differs from much modern science fiction in that is defies classification. In part science fiction, in part psychological-religious exploration, in part modern doomsday tale, in part pseudo-historical documentation, the story follows the earthly life of Geoge Sherban, human incarnation of the Canopan being Johor. George/ Johor visits a near future Earth where human society is on the brink of total breakdown. Joh...more

like · see review

Mar 24, 2012 Paul Kieniewicz rated it 4 of 5 stars

I know that a book is exceptional if I’ve read it more than once. More than twice, and it has to be extraordinary. Doris Lessing’s Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta (the first in a series known as Canopus in Argos) is one of those. Known for her extensive corpus of mainstream, left-leaning fiction, Shikasta represents her first foray into science fiction., and into mysticism. Her die-hard fans hated her new direction and hoped it wouldn’t last. She’d already tried their patience with Briefing for...more I know that a book is exceptional if I’ve read it more than once. More than twice, and it has to be extraordinary. Doris Lessing’s Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta (the first in a series known as Canopus in Argos) is one of those. Known for her extensive corpus of mainstream, left-leaning fiction, Shikasta represents her first foray into science fiction., and into mysticism. Her die-hard fans hated her new direction and hoped it wouldn’t last. She’d already tried their patience with Briefing for a Descent into Hell a non-linear novel that explores the the mind of a man whom everyone agrees is insane. At the end of the book, the reader is left asking, is there such a thing as sanity?

And now Shikasta, a view of the Earth’s history that suggests the presence of cosmic influences on our race for good and ill. To enjoy the book, you have to excise everything the book may remind you of: Von Danniken, L. Ron Hubbard, 2001-A Space Odyssey.
Lessing is more mystical. You can tell that she has read Sufi writings extensively. Shikasta, the name that Canopus gave to our planet, means the stricken one. The sick planet. Long ago when giants lived on our planet, things were different. Human evolution was being accelerated by a link established with the advanced civilization of Canopus. Then something went wrong. It’s a story as old as Adam and Eve but unlike in the biblical story where the blame is laid on the woman who ate an apple, Lessing removes the element of guilt from humanity. What happened was a disaster --- the word meaning a stellar misalignment. Nothing that our ancestors are responsible for.Canopus sends its agent Johor to help our stricken race. He can do nothing except to evacuate those ready to leave everything behind, and leave the others to thousands of years in spiritual darkness.

We skip to our post-modern age, a time of deep economic depression when our civilization is disintegrating. Johor returns to salvage what can be saved before a nuclear holocaust decimates the Earth’s population. This time he’s born of human parents.Canopus agents are born like us, except that they retain the memory of their origin. When they’re finished with their job, they shed their bodies by committing suicide. Then there are agents who, just as the rest of us, have forgotten who they are. The book climaxes in a mock trial on capitalism where Johor is the prosecutor and an amnesiac agent plays the defense. The trial awakens memory in the amnesiac agent. As expected from Lessing, the novel contains some obligatory socialist philosophy, but it doesn’t dominate the action.

Lessing delivers her vision of the loss of an ancient relationship with cosmic powers, dark ages and the future recovery of what was lost. She develops the vision further in subsequent books in the series.(less)

1 like · like · see review

Oct 13, 2009 Brendan rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, book-club, fiction, scifi, philosophy-religion

Sigh. I picked this book for my book club and it’s a bear. I didn’t really like it much until the last 100 pages or so, and even then I only kinda liked it. The book moves glacially, without much in the way of character to capture your imagination. In all honesty, I only remember the last portion very well, since it’s in that last part that the story solidifies with a narrower set of characters.

Shikasta tells the story of a world (which we come to discover is Earth) that’s being monitored by ali...more Sigh. I picked this book for my book club and it’s a bear. I didn’t really like it much until the last 100 pages or so, and even then I only kinda liked it. The book moves glacially, without much in the way of character to capture your imagination. In all honesty, I only remember the last portion very well, since it’s in that last part that the story solidifies with a narrower set of characters.

Shikasta tells the story of a world (which we come to discover is Earth) that’s being monitored by aliens from elsewhere, some of whom are good and some of whom are bad. These aliens compete to control the destiny of the people on the planet by influencing our behavior through visits both direct and unseen. The end of the book focuses on a single visit by “Johor” in which that particular administrator visits Earth to try and influence the symbolic trial of the white race held by the youth of the world. The trial, which takes place an unspecified amount of time in the future from present day, suggests that the imperiled and dying white race is responsible for the rapacious and cruel modes humankind has adopted. No clear resolution is given, though perhaps it appears in one of the remaining books of the series (which I won’t be reading). Some additional thoughts:

* The trial aspect reminds me of James Morrow’s work, particularly This is the Way the World Ends and Blameless in Abaddon, both of which focus on symbolic trials (of humankind for the death of future humanity and of God for all things bad, respectively). I think Morrow’s work is much more accessible. And good.
* Lessing writes the book in the bureaucratic tone, creating the idea of a giant bureaucracy overseeing Shikasta. The book is a compilation of primary documents from that supervision, as well as reports written by the supervisors. There’s a reason people don’t like reading reports, generally. It’s because they’re usually boring as snot.
* The book has an interesting allegorical connection to the idea of heaven and hell. Jenny has just read This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti, an evangelical story that describes Angels and Demons at war in our midst. This book has a similar feel, except that the war appears in dribs and drabs, undescribed and mentioned bureaucratically.
* The idea of “Zones” seems to suggest alternate universes to which people go when they die, and a big part of the supervisory project is returning those people to Shikasta again by means of reincarnation, I think. There are also some sort of spiritual vampires that live in these alternate zones.

Ultimately, I feel like the plot description on Wikipedia makes the book sound far more interesting than it actually is.(less)

like · see review

Jan 07, 2010 Richard marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi

I've had an email to myself sitting at the bottom of my inbox since before joining Goodreads, and I finally took a look at it again. Back in late 2007, Verlyn Klinkenborg started an essay (entitled When Doris Lessing Meets Lady Mary Wortley Montagu ) thus:

This past week, I’ve been reading two books side by side, coincidentally at first and then more and more intently. They are the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, perhaps the most accomplished Englishwoman of the 18th century, and “Shikasta,

...more

like · see review

Mar 17, 2012 Jessica rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

Okay...deep breath. I realize that this is Doris Lessing. I realize that this book is about peace, love and understanding. I realize I should evaluate it in context as it was published in the late 70's. I have to be open about my feelings though and I struggled through this book. It was preachy and disjointed. I spent too much time trying to decide exactly what she was talking about. She fell into the trap that often gets you in the Sci-fi genre, lack of idea editing. There are just too many of...more

like · see review

Feb 13, 2010 Peter Sprunger rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: nobel-literature

The premise of the book is that Earth was visited and influenced by aliens. Some aliens are good and try to help humanity live in harmony, others are bad and feed off the tension caused by unrest. It sounds (is) hokey, but overall Lessing pulls it off. She has a very engaging and simple writing style which does not make the book a difficult read.
The book starts off well but then quickly becomes a social commentary. Lessing, who was born in Persia (now Iran) and grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabw...more

like · see review

Mar 16, 2012 Mimi rated it 3 of 5 stars

After an initial difficulty, because of the very dry style, a sort of government report from the envoy of Canopus about his stays in Shikasta, at times an allegory of earth before and after the fall, I came to enjoy this book. There are no really good characters, but it all works. Even though there are many different narrators, the tone remains the same dry style, except in one section where the sister of the main character keeps a diary. There are many astute comments about the state of the wor...more

like · see review

Nov 30, 2008 Joe rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: mystics, conspiracy types, grouches

Recommended to Joe by: Nilary B

This is a very depressing book, an alternate take on human history, but I like being miserable so I dug it. It is very well-written and I don't feel it is slow-moving at all. Ms. Lessing does a great job of making such a ( seemingly ) far-fetched story believable.
One thing--Am I the only person who noticed the similarity to "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson" by G.I. Gurdjieff? The plot and even some of the writing style are so much alike. Since Ms. Lessing was a student of Sufism and Idries Sha...more

like · see review

Mar 03, 2010 Janet rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a rather tedious read. For SciFi/Fantasy, it was remarkably dull. Perhaps because the main narrator is an alien (Johor) from another galaxy who has repeatedly visited Earth/Shikasta over the course of the course of the entire history of humans (or hybrids, as the narrator refers to them). Johor's official reports to his home planet are dry, and sometimes confusing.

I stuck with it, though. It turned out to be consistent with my ideas on ecopsychology, spirituality and social mores. I enj...more

like · see review

Sep 10, 2012 A rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, gnosticism-mysticism-esotericism, speculative-fantastic-magical

"Shikasta" is not an easy book, nor one that is easy to like, as the other reviews will attest.

Whereas "The Golden Notebook" or "The Four-Gated City" operated intimately at our level, depicting human experiences from within, here it is studied from without, and by superior beings that have evolved past our confused emotional/psychological landscape, past our petty tribalism, and so forth. As such, it only really engages emotionally when the humans are allowed to speak directly from their own ex...more "Shikasta" is not an easy book, nor one that is easy to like, as the other reviews will attest.

Whereas "The Golden Notebook" or "The Four-Gated City" operated intimately at our level, depicting human experiences from within, here it is studied from without, and by superior beings that have evolved past our confused emotional/psychological landscape, past our petty tribalism, and so forth. As such, it only really engages emotionally when the humans are allowed to speak directly from their own experiences. I believe this is why the portions written by Rachel Sherban are some of the most memorable: because she is a small human trying to grapple with just being human, along with the bigger stuff the novel is primarily concerned with. This brings to mind one of the central problems in "Watchmen," particularly the character of Dr. Manhattan, which is the difficulty of superior beings in relating to us low humans. We become as chess pieces to these beings, and indeed that is the underlying narrative: that of lowly little humans being played with by forces beyond their knowledge and control. Naturally, the Canopus has our ultimate best interests in mind, being concerned with our positive evolution as a species to some higher plane, while Shammat has only the goal of using us as a power supply. Were Lessing not smart enough to include the human voices among the alien, "Shikasta" might have likely been an even drier, distancing read.

Another thing that works against the novel is the fragmented nature of the narrative. On the one hand, it's a matter of necessity, this being the whole conceit of the novel, i.e. that it is from an alien perspective offering an alternate take on human history and myth in an effort to view it from another vantage. It can also be looked at as an outgrowth of the stylistic concerns of "The Golden Notebook" and "The Four-Gated City," which are among her best works. What Lessing is doing here is trying to encompass multiple perspectives and time frames, to push us to think in both large and small terms. On the other hand, this kind of approach is rife with difficulties, and the sprawl of the novel is almost too much. There is plot here, but there is no big arc, but then Lessing is a sprawling sort of writer and not one for intensely swelling arcs.

The meat of the content is both compelling and...frustrating, to say the least. While I didn't find the retelling of Genesis or human history *too* obvious or simplistic (you really had to read some bits to figure how it all fit together), the approach was at times heavy-handed and prone to simplification. Canopus = good; Shammat = bad; Humans = chaotic and self-destructive! The intent here is clearly allegorical, and allegory has often been criticized on these counts. But early on, Lessing brought to mind one of the allegories that Indries Shah describes in one of the early chapters in The Sufis. In that story, there is an island in which a society is designed for the purposes of eventually leaving the island, but as time goes by, they begin to doubt the plan and eventually forget it, to the extent that those who remember leaving the island are viewed as insane. I'm simplifying it quite a bit, but you get the picture. The opening of the story with Shikasta is similar, though in this case the degeneration is wrought by Shammat, causing Canopus to lose the lock on the planet and all to go awry. The world that Lessing creates also bears some resemblance to certain Gnostic myths, particularly in her casting of the blame for Original Sin not on some mistake made by humans, but by forces well beyond human control. Of course, the Gnostics often tended to conceive of The World itself as being stained by evil at birth, a degeneration from celestial spheres. Like the Gnostic mythologizers before her, she has we humans containing the celestial spark of some alien "God," albeit in the genetic sense or through entry into human bodies via Zone 6. The work of Gurdjieff, about whom I am less knowledgeable, also springs to mind.

Viewed from this angle, "Shikasta" is really quite clever and interesting. The main problems, of course, are that it doesn't fully connect and is often quite dry and boring. The trial portion that served as a sort of climax was highly skimmable and seemed as if it could have been effectively shortened. There was some dross in the early history portions as well. The fractured narrative itself didn't really bother me, since I did view it as intrinsic to the story Lessing wanted to tell. Ultimately, this was the sort of book one likes the idea of sometimes more than the execution.(less)

like · see review

Dec 08, 2011 Isabel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Canopus in Argos: Archives
Re: Colonised Planet 5
Shikasta
Personal, Psychological,Historical Documents Relating to Visit by Johor (George Sherban)
Emissary (Grade 9)
87th of the Period of the Last Days

The first witness was brilliantly chosen. (From a certain point of view.) She was a delegate from Shansi Province. A girl of about twenty. She was, of course, well-fed and neatly dressed and looked healthy and at once the atmosphere lost tension. We are not popular. That is the penalty we have to pay f...more Canopus in Argos: Archives
Re: Colonised Planet 5
Shikasta
Personal, Psychological,Historical Documents Relating to Visit by Johor (George Sherban)
Emissary (Grade 9)
87th of the Period of the Last Days

The first witness was brilliantly chosen. (From a certain point of view.) She was a delegate from Shansi Province. A girl of about twenty. She was, of course, well-fed and neatly dressed and looked healthy and at once the atmosphere lost tension. We are not popular. That is the penalty we have to pay for our superiority!

This book takes the form of an academic text for first-year students of Canopean Colonial Rule. It covers the whole history of Shikasta from prehistoric times, and it is clear from the start that Shikasta is Earth.

Initially the Canopeans had high hopes for the planet Rohanda, the fruitful, the thriving. But their long-term project to mould the physical and spiritual development of its inhabitants was spoilt when Rohanda came under the influence of the criminal planet Shammat, and the link to Canopus was severed. From then on, Rohanda was known as Shikasta, the broken, the hurt one, and however much the Canopean agents tried they were unable to undo the damage caused by Shammat. I found the middle part of the the book very depressing, with the Canopean agents tell the story of various humans whose lives were sent off track by the power of Shammat. It was so depressing that I nearly gave up reading, but luckily I didn't as the final third of the book was the most involving.

There are other ways of accessing Shikasta, but Canopean agents who need to be there for the long term are incarnated as humans, and they enter Shikasta via Zone 6, where souls wait to be reborn. Some agents live a whole human life without remembering their true identity and purpose, but when Johor is incarnated as George Sherban, he spends his life working with youth groups around the world, culminating in a youth congress that conducts a mock trial of the white faces for the evil they have done in the past. But the Canopeans don't want to lose the Europeans' wide genetic diversity, and the Chinese contingent doesn't realise that every aspect of the congress is being manipulated to leave the delegates wondering why they are trying the white races, when it is the Chinese who now run everything and patronise the other races 'for their own good'.

And there was just one casual comment somewhere in the book that made me think that the Canopeans might not be quite as altruistic as they appear.(less)

like · see review

Jan 27, 2012 Art Noose rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Art by: Ian Mayes

This is the third Doris Lessing book that I've read, and I feel now like I kind of have a handle on what her work is generally like. She has recurring themes and settings. I started reading this on a trip, and it was probably only because I was on a trip that I powered through it. That is to say, I didn't have anything else to read. When I got back, I put it down and didn't touch it for a month, when I finished it while on another trip.

That's not to say that this is a terrible book. It's just ve...more

1 like · like · see review

Oct 14, 2011 Ryandake rated it 2 of 5 stars

oh, it hurts to give a Doris Lessing book a two.

but this one just doesn't work as a story. i think it is a fabulous extended world-building, but not really a story. i like my stories to have real flesh-and-blood people in them, and this one just doesn't.

contrast this one with The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five--same universe, totally different feel.

like · see review

Dec 10, 2012 Mel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 20th-century-fiction, scifi, library

I borrowed this book from the library, I noted that while it had been borrowed on at least 10 different occasions (going by the date stamps at the front) no one had seemed to have gotten further than the first 100 pages or so! (judging by the creases in the spine). I have to admit I found the first half of this book really annoying. The first 100 pages or so were quite confusing, the different levels of the planet and the different forces, once it became clear that it was Earth it started to mak...more

like · see review

Jul 13, 2011 Ben Richmond rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: well-styled, labor-but-of-love, female-authors, noble-prize-winners, sci-fish

More C.S. Lewis science fiction than Asimov. This first of a series is broad is scope, the course of human history written with an outsider's perspective. This could skew toward moralizing, I suppose, in the same way my sister accuses John Steinbeck of doing in his broad scope chapters of Grapes of Wrath. But Lessing's prism through which she views and judges humanity is pretty abstract and nuanced, or at least, it can't be written off as socialist propaganda (I love Steinbeck and think those bi...more

like · see review

Oct 18, 2010 Isa rated it 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this; science fiction rather in the direction of Stanislaw Lem. Lots of diplomacy and secret agents involved as well, hardly any sci-fi-typical technology. A little dated now in some aspects, perhaps. but the general concern about humanity is hardly ever out of time.

Somehow the book also presents a kind of theodicee, in that the reason of Man's depravity is due to 'cosmic forces', beyond the control even of the 'supervisors'. The foreseeable resolve of the story into a kind of Happy...more

1 like · like · see review

Aug 02, 2011 Erik Graff rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: no one

Recommended to Erik by: no one

Shelves: sf

Doris Lessing was first recommended to me by Karen Spilke, my next-door neighbor in the senior year at Union Theological Seminary, who read part of her Golden Notebook aloud while I was driving her car up to visit her parent's summer house near Leeds, New York. I had certainly heard of Lessing before and this reading put it back in my head to get down to reading her fiction.

Then, Shikasta came out, a science fiction novel by the intended. Great! I bought it in hardcover and two of the subsequent...more

like · see review

Nov 12, 2011 Frank rated it 5 of 5 stars

An ambitious book, Lessing offers an explanation of humankind’s well-documented social flaws (war, environmental despoilation, disparate wealth distribution, racism, etc) being due to angels, devils, and what amounts to a network problem (denial-of-service attack) in the transmission of the cosmic love vibe (CLV). Lessing uses the new (at the time) legitimacy of the sci-fi (SF) genre to justify a framework of advanced galactic empires and their influence on our planet thru history. DL is not, to...more An ambitious book, Lessing offers an explanation of humankind’s well-documented social flaws (war, environmental despoilation, disparate wealth distribution, racism, etc) being due to angels, devils, and what amounts to a network problem (denial-of-service attack) in the transmission of the cosmic love vibe (CLV). Lessing uses the new (at the time) legitimacy of the sci-fi (SF) genre to justify a framework of advanced galactic empires and their influence on our planet thru history. DL is not, to put it kindly, particularly suited as an SF writer; much of her ’science’ comes off as vague new-agey claptrap. But Lessing is unsurpassed in her harsh, severe application of the sciences of psychology and sociology. Her portraits of intelligent men and women caught up in political and social causes and crises of their age are stunning. Her series of terrorists is particularly fascinating. Her mastery of left-wing sloganeering cracks me up.

Literary gems are sprinkled throughout, for example on page 201 the sentence beginning “And this is what an eye turned slightly…” observing the tree through the window reflecting cycles of growth, renewal and decay. And in the midst of the spectacle of an international trial of the white nations she dryly notes “…Arabs and Jews were inseperable…” - ha ha! Who says DL doesn’t have a sense of humor?

A heavier dose of editing could have tightened up some of this book’s flaws. For instance, a chapter on cats has nothing to do with the rest of the novel and is attached to the story by the barest thread; DL just likes writing about cats.

I suppose DL was getting desperate for an answer to her central question (why are people so fucked up) and couldn’t resist using this one. Or maybe she just enjoyed the scope; I’ll bet it was fun writing about the Chinese conquest of Europe, for example. Regardless, the weakness of the structural framework and annoyance of her rejection of humankind’s responsibility for it’s messes are small prices to pay for the huge payoff of sharing these awesome and audacious human chronicles.(less)

like · see review

Mar 08, 2011 Manny rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, transcendent-experiences

My favorite quotes from this book both come from the introduction:

"Shikasta has as its starting point, like many others of the genre, the Old Testament. It is our habit to dismiss the Old Testament altogether because Jehovah, or Jahve, does not think or behave like a social worker."

"I do think that there is something very wrong with an attitude that puts a 'serious' novel on one shelf and, let's say, First and Last Men on another."

And, indeed, the overall effect is rather as though Olaf Stapledo...more

8 likes · like · see review

Dec 08, 2008 Emily rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: feminism, science-fiction-fantasy-horror

I really wanted to love this book.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Golden Notebook and was excited when I found out that Doris Lessing had written a series of science fiction novels.

The idea of this novel is interesting. Shikasta is the planet Earth and the book is basically the story of the planet from Old Testement times to the World War III, told through the perspective of envoys from the planet Canopus. Earth (Shikasta) is caught between two planets trying to control it, but the people of Earth do...more

like · see review

Jul 26, 2008 Stephanie "Jedigal" rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books

Wow. I am happily surprised how much I liked this book. My 1st try at D. Lessing was THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK, and I could not get myself into it, gave it up pretty quickly. When I was researching her work, I was curious to hear she had written a series of sci fi titles.

The "sci" in this sci fi is on the light side. As is the case in much of the finest science fiction, distancing us from the known world can help an author frame a story the better to make points about that same world. The basic point...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 60 61 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (13)

More editions...

Genres

Science Fiction

67 users

Fantasy

8 users

Literature

7 users

Novels

6 users

Science Fiction Fantasy

6 users

Nobel Prize

5 users

Literature > English Literature

3 users

Science Fiction > Aliens

3 users

Speculative Fiction

2 users

Literature > International Literature

2 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

Islandia
by Austin Tappan Wright
Tik-Tok
by John Sladek
The Green Child
by Herbert Read
He, She and It
by Marge Piercy
Up the Walls of the World
by James Tiptree Jr.

About Doris Lessing

Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Like other women writers from southern African who did not graduate from high school (such as Oliv...more Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Like other women writers from southern African who did not graduate from high school (such as Olive Schreiner and Nadine Gordimer), Lessing made herself into a self-educated intellectual.

In 1937 she moved to Salisbury, where she worked as a telephone operator for a year. At nineteen, she married Frank Wisdom, and had two children. A few years later, feeling trapped in a persona that she feared would destroy her, she left her family, remaining in Salisbury. Soon she was drawn to the like-minded members of the Left Book Club, a group of Communists "who read everything, and who did not think it remarkable to read." Gottfried Lessing was a central member of the group; shortly after she joined, they married and had a son.

During the postwar years, Lessing became increasingly disillusioned with the Communist movement, which she left altogether in 1954. By 1949, Lessing had moved to London with her young son. That year, she also published her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, and began her career as a professional writer.

In June 1995 she received an Honorary Degree from Harvard University. Also in 1995, she visited South Africa to see her daughter and grandchildren, and to promote her autobiography. It was her first visit since being forcibly removed in 1956 for her political views. Ironically, she is welcomed now as a writer acclaimed for the very topics for which she was banished 40 years ago.

In 2001 she was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize in Literature, one of Spain's most important distinctions, for her brilliant literary works in defense of freedom and Third World causes. She also received the David Cohen British Literature Prize.

She was on the shortlist for the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005. In 2007 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

(Extracted from the pamphlet: A Reader's Guide to The Golden Notebook & Under My Skin, HarperPerennial, 1995. Full text available on www.dorislessing.org).(less)

More about Doris Lessing...

Books by Doris Lessing

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Shikasta

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from Shikasta

“We are all creatures of the stars.” — 23 people liked it

“War...strengthened the position of the armament industries...to a point...that these industries dominated the economies and therefore the governments of all the participating nations...war barbarised and lowered the already very low level of accepted conduct.” — 3 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: Shikasta
avg rating	preview: Shikasta Goodreads rating: 3.77 (869 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/186682.Shikasta?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1242278200l/186682.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/186682.Shikasta?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Shikasta by Doris Lessing[/url]

Shikasta (Canopus in Argos #1)

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website