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The Sirian Experiments (Canopus in Argos #3)
Shortlisted for the 1981 Booker Prize. The Sirian Experiments is the third volume in Doris Lessing's celebrated space fiction series. 'Canopus in Argos: Archives'. In this interlnked quintet of novels, she creates a new, extraordinary cosmos where the fate of the Earth is influenced by the rivalries and interactions of three powerful galactic empires, Canopus, Sirius and t...more
Published
(first published 1980)
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The third volume in Doris Lessing's space saga is very close in style to what I would have hoped to have seen in "Shikasta," the opening novel of the series. Like "Shikasta," "The Sirian Experiments" chronicles a long history of Earth, jumping from setting to setting, offering a panoramic view of our planet. Unlike "Shikasta," which was a near chaotic compilation of different texts barely forming a whole, this book is all one report from the viewpoint of an alien exploring this world. And the re...more
I loved the idea of this book: having another look and evaluation of our planet's physical and social history by removing ourselves from the equation. This was done as a memoir told from the viewpoint of the main administrator of the galactic empire that has been involved in the events of our planet for millennium.
It was interesting to see ideas and historical events in this removed manner. Some things I marked:
"To 'live simply', to 'get back to nature', seemed to nearly everyone the solution to...more
It was interesting to see ideas and historical events in this removed manner. Some things I marked:
"To 'live simply', to 'get back to nature', seemed to nearly everyone the solution to...more
What is amazing about "The Sirian Experiments" [which I ought to point out I read independently from the rest of the series] is the way in which the science fiction works as a sort of political-psychological history of what makes up the human psyche. Through the memoirs of one of the leaders of the Sirian Empire, one of the fictional interplanetary empires that in Lessing's universe colonise and repeatedly experiment with the population of Earth, we see the history of the planet and human civili...more
The third in Lessing's Canopus in Argos series, and after the relatively smaller scale of the second book we're back on a galactic scale, watching as Sirian bureaucrats try to guide the evolution of civilisation on Earth over vast periods of time. Once again Lessing is concerned with superior intelligences trying to maintain their patience, humility and perspective in the face of barbarity. As the cover blurb warns, the narrator is rather "dry", but that's not to say she's aloof or unsympathetic...more
Just reread this after years and it was even better than my (rather faded!) memory of it. Lessing is one of my favourite writers and in my view was and is so beyond her time that even now this book is probably still just one step ahead of current evolution. It was fascinating to see how much of what was predicted for the "imaginary" Shikasta has actually come to pass in recent years. But what I really felt on this read was the deep flow of Canopus, with its heart based approach of flow and inter...more
if we wanted to, we could have crammed our planets with billions of genera, species, races—as they once had been. When we wanted, they could be left empty. We could—and did—maintain some planets, for special purposes, at high levels of population, and leave others virtually unpopulated. While all these variations on our basic problem were attempted, our space drive had been stabilised. We had discovered that no matter how forcefully we swept out into space, gathering in suitable planets as we fo...more
"We all see truths when we can see them. When we do, it is always a temptation to consider those who have not seen them as quite intrusively and obdurately stupid."
Sister speaks for me...wait, I hear my brother, Yogi Bhajan speaking into my other ear...Do not solve a problem, drop it.
Yes, yes drop it to the ground and then take a stick and poke at to see if there is any life left of it. And if so, attend to that goodness with co-operation and friendship.
Sister speaks for me...wait, I hear my brother, Yogi Bhajan speaking into my other ear...Do not solve a problem, drop it.
Yes, yes drop it to the ground and then take a stick and poke at to see if there is any life left of it. And if so, attend to that goodness with co-operation and friendship.
Aug 02, 2011
Erik Graff
rated it
1 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Lessing fans
Recommended to Erik by:
no one
Shelves:
sf
The concept of Lessing's series of soft science fiction novels is promising. It may be read as a series of accounts of surreptitious extraterrestrial interventions upon ourselves as the subjects of their competing attentions or it may be read as representing more or less covert Soviet and American competition over the allegiances and development of other states. The overriding concern, however, is moral, Lessing seeming to be more concerned with the character development of her protagonists in t...more
This third book in the Canopus in Argos: Archives series was as good as the first two. Doris Lessing's visionary grasp on our world is stunning. Read more here.
I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/10368607
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/10368607
Aug 28, 2009
Fenixbird SandS
marked it as to-read
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
science-fiction
Another & now for something completely different! SCI FI? DORIS LESSING? whadda U know?
81 shortlisted for booker prize
One of the best books I've read.
Apr 25, 2011
Magdelanye
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
alternate-reality,
fantasy
brilliant series
This is the second of Lessing's "space fictions" I've read. I'm not rating it highly, but I will probably read her "Shikasta" eventually...
Amazing as all the rest of the series
A third of five.
May 10, 2013
Courtney
marked it as to-read
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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
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