Alan Zendell's Blog: It's About Time, page 3

Stand on Zanzibar

Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I loved this book when it came out in 1968. I thought it was daringly brilliant, a frightening projection of what the world might be like in 2010. Reading it in 2012, I'm reminded that projection isn't the same as prediction.

As a predictor, writing in the mid-1960s, Brunner missed a few things like cell phones, the internet, auto-immune disorders like AIDS, and Iran replacing Egypt as the middle-east bad guy. He also missed the facts that a permanent moon base and suborbital high-speed airliners simply weren't in the cards, economically. But he also got a lot right.

In the 60s, we were obsessed with overpopulation, the Cold War, and breaking down the paradigms we had grown up with. That's what "Stand on Zanzibar" focuses on along with the essence of human nature, and I still think it handles those themes brilliantly. The invented hip jargon feels dated, but that's an easily overcome obstacle once you get into the meat of the story. A lot of what Brunner warned about has happened already. It's scary.



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March Will Present a Couple of Milestones for My Books

Making the first cut in the Amazon Create Space Breakthrough Novel contest (http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images...) with "The Portal" has improved my outlook somewhat. Logically I know that one in a thousand is a lot better than one in five-thousand, but emotionally it still seems like a big mountain to climb. The next milestone is March 20th, when they publish the list of 500 quarter finalists. One in five-hundred still feels like a long shot, but if I get there I'll be quite pleased.

The other milestone is the 2011 Compton-Crook competition. The winners won't be announced until Balticon on Memorial Day weekend, but by mid-March I ought to be able to get a reading on how well "Wednesday's Child" is doing in the preliminary scoring.

I'm not ready to be heavily invested in either, but it's exciting to contemplate.

Learning the World

Learning the World: a Scientific Romance by Ken MacLeod

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book left me with sharply mixed feelings. It's an easy read, a great story that's often fun, but there were just too many things in it that felt wrong to me. Too much strange physics which might be acceptable if it was necessary to drive an otherwise tight plot, but it wasn't. The green mist in interstellar space signalling the coming of intelligent visitors and the spawning of countless new universes really add nothing to the story and and cause readers to scratch their heads.

The characters are well-developed and interesting but the web of constantly changing relationships and alliances gets confusing, especially during the critical events at the story's climax. I had to read the last couple of pages several times before I understood what had actually happened.

The most likable aspect of "Learning the World" was the alien bat-people, though the author's final evaluation of them made me want to shout "No!" It's great that they're able to overcome their differences and unite in the face of an external threat from the sky, but the case for their nobility doesn't make the grade. The bat people have enslaved, tortured, and maimed a species similar to themselves if somewhat lower on the evolutionary scale throughout their history. As much as we like the bat-people, we tend to cringe whenever their treatment of the trudges enters the story. When they learn that the trudges are in fact their equals, or nearly so, the bat-people change their ways virtually overnight. No more castration, no more crippling, no more whipping and killing. The author puts that forth as proof of the bat-people's honor and basic goodness, and would have us believe that that makes them better than humans. But I kept likening the trudges to chimpanzees, from our point of view, and that just didn't wash with me.



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Mockingjay - The End of the Hunger Games

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I guess it was hard to top "The Hunger Games". "Mockingjay" wraps up the trilogy in a much less spectacular fashion than it began. The resolution of Katniss's trials and travails is acceptable enough, but the journey she took in this book simply couldn't equal what came before.

In truth I kept hoping she would grow up some. She's only 17 throughout most of this book, but after all she'd been through, I'd have liked to see more clarity in her. Clarity about who she is and what she stands for. But instead there's constant confusion and she seems to wander through this book like a random walk, just being drawn along by events. And there was too much death and maiming for my taste. In the "Hunger Games" they were necessary components of the story. In "Mockingjay" they felt like overkill.

Katniss's final act of defiance, while not surprising, is at least pure Katniss. In the end, realizing fully that the people fighting the bad guys aren't necessarily good guys, re-aiming her remaining arrow and doing what she could to break the cycle of despair was a fitting conclusion to her struggles. But in the other key issue of the young girl's life, I was disappointed in the outcome. The way she wound up with Peeta while losing Gale sounded like a weary, half-hearted conclusion given the tension that their triangle had sustained throughout the trilogy. And Gale just seemed to fade out of the story. For all his conflicting qualities, I thought he deserved better. Maybe it all would have worked out that way in real life, but I expect more from heroines like Katniss.



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ABNA - Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Contest

I have so many mixed feelings about this, I hardly know where to start. On its face, the contest sounds like an attempt to help new and self-published authors get exposure for their books. The first prize is nice - a publishing contract with Penguin Press and a $15,000 advance. So, why the mixed feelings?

Well, maybe it's because only one novel in each category of 5,000 entries can win anything except being an also-ran. Does that sound like they're trying to help authors? So it feels about the same to me as buying a lottery ticket. You see, I put a lot of myself into writing, and there's something offensive about feeling like a ball in a bingo machine. I guess my recent experience with Create Space, the Amazon subsidiary sponsoring the contest, has left me suspicious about whether Amazon is interested in anyone's success but its own. It makes me think the contest is nothing but a marketing ploy for Create Space. Duh!

Why then, did I just enter "The Portal" in the contest? It didn't cost anything to enter and it didn't take very long, so why not?

And it forced me to read through the manuscript again and catch the few remaining errors. And to remind myself how much I really like this book. It still makes me cry. Maybe I'll make the first cut to the top 1,000. I should know by February 24th.

Catching Fire - The Hunger Games #2

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Everything that was good about "The Hunger Games" is present in "Catching Fire", the same values, the same high quality writing, the same characters. But it's the word "same" that creates a feeling of something missing. "Catching Fire" is still a very good read, but it lacks the freshness of "The Hunger Games". I would have preferred that Katniss be more directly involved in the rebellion, but give the author her due: her approach was clever and well-wrought.

I still recommend this book and intend to finish the series. I love that Katniss can be loving and passionate without being overtly sexual. That takes real skill on the part of the author. And I love that Katniss can have all the values we associate with good character -- honesty, honor, commitment, perseverance, love of family, inner strength -- without a single mention of a deity or religion. It's a subtle point but one that I particularly appreciate.



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When Authors and FilmmakersTry to Humanize War...

...nothing makes me angrier. It started with the Geneva Convention. Remember when we learned about it in school, and we were taught that promoting it made us the good guys? No Japanese death marches for us, no using civilians as hostages like the North Vietnamese guerillas did. I've always said that if the American people were ever foolish enough to elect me President my first act in office would be to disavow it as misguided hypocrisy. For my second act, I might as well quit, because nothing else I did could top that.

Remember, too, how we were propagandized in the 70s? People fleeing to Canada were branded traitors and anti-war protestors were called Communist sympathizers and worse. People who did everything possible to avoid the draft were labeled cowards and part of a subversive political movement, but there was a deep, dark secret the media never mentioned. Anyone who knew someone who returned from Vietnam heard about the snake-infested jungles, the terror-induced heroin addiction, and the enemy who owned the night (thanks, Billy Joel). If we'd been defending our homeland, that might have been okay, but we weren't. Under the circumstances, any sane person would have avoided all that at any cost.

If we educated our children honestly about the true nature of war very few of them would be willing to go off to fight. I hope that was what Steven Spielberg was thinking when he made "The War Horse". When I heard that it was billed as a Christmas movie, I had two thoughts. Maybe it was a remake of Lassie Come Home starring a horse, but seeing the trailer disabused me of that idea. Why, I asked, would anyone spend Christmas with his family watching a horse charge across a battlefield of blood-soaked mud dodging bullets and artillery shells. And don't forget the barbed wire. Yes, it was about honor and courage and loyalty, and there was some real movie magic in the performance of that wonderful horse. It rose above its ordeals, and all the people who dealt with it showed that as awful as the war was, it hadn't dehumanized them, but to me, the film was more obscene than anything rated X.

Anyone who paid attention in school knows the brutal horror of World War I, but "The War Horse" added a new dimension to it. The sight of a landscape littered with horses who had been worked to death, then shot and left there to rot, was appalling. It overshadowed the bravery and determination of humans and animals alike. It was awful. I almost walked out at that point, but then, I thought -- NO. Everyone should take their children to see "The War Horse" again and again. Those children would never be willing to fight in someone else's war.

The Hunger Games is for Everyone

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


There is so much that's good in "The Hunger Games" that despite a few obvious flaws I can't rate it less than five stars. That's simply because the flaws are trivial compared to what is so good about this book. My criterion for evaluating a book is very simple: it's based on how badly I want to turn each page and read the next one, and "The Hunger Games" is one of those books you just don't want to put down until you've finished it.

Another thing that distinguishes "The Hunger Games" is that it appeals equally to anyone old enough to read, regardless of his or her age. While clearly aimed at teens and young adults, it drew me in and held me tight throughout, although I'm old enough to have grandchildren that age. That kind of universality is rare.

Most important is the story itself and the way it provokes thought and evokes feeling. We love Katniss from the first page and when she sacrifices her future to save her younger sister we need desperately for her to win. The 16-year-old girl is dropped into an arena in which she must kill to survive. Since she must, we know she will when she has to. The real question is whether she can do so without losing her humanity. Can she still feel love, compassion, and honor in spite of the things she is forced to do? She enters the arena not even sure who she is or what she believes in. If she wins, what will she be when she emerges? Once having met Katniss it's impossible to simply abandon her to her fate.

Katniss's world and the setup of the story are difficult to believe, and I frequently asked myself if people, nations, and governments could ever exist the way they are described. The most frightening thing about "The Hunger Games" is that the reader is ultimately forced to accept that they can. One look at the horrors of the past and we cannot deny that Collins's future is a possible one. That's why this book deserves five stars and should be read by everyone.

So I put aside my incredulity about the technical marvels in the story, because they're not as important as the story itself.



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Re-imagining a Good Story: "Fuzzy Nation" vs "Little Fuzzy"

Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Looked at by itself, "Fuzzy Nation" is really fun. Scalzi writes with the easy-to-read style and roguish insolence we've missed since we lost Robert Heinlein. It's head is in the right place, too, sticking up for the rights of the defenseless against corporate greed.

I read "Fuzzy Nation" because my reading group selected it to be read together with H. Beam Piper's "Little Fuzzy". Having already given "Little Fuzzy" a thumbs-up review, it's impossible to discuss "Fuzzy Nation" without comparing them, which raises the question: why re-write a story someone else has already written and written well?

Scalzi himself calls "Fuzzy Nation" a re-imagination of Piper's story. But why do that unless you plan to bring something new to the table? Perhaps to update its message in a more modern context?

If you saw my review of "Little Fuzzy" you know that my only real complaint, and it was a mild one, was that Piper, in allegorizing the civil rights movement of the 1960s, inexplicably treated women much as previous generations had represented the very minorities he was indirectly supporting. Scalzi corrected that omission, handsomely. The women in "Fuzzy Nation" aren't all nice, but they're all very much the equals of the men in the story. So the incongruency that troubled me in "Little Fuzzy" wasn't there in "Fuzzy Nation". Scalzi also made the main character, Jack Holloway, more of an asshole (Scalzi's word, not mine) than he was in "Little Fuzzy". I'm not sure that was necessary -- I actually didn't like him as well in "Fuzzy Nation". But Jack's swashbuckling approach to life gave the story the endearing character of a fairy tale, since we all know that characters like Jack only win in our dreams and fantasies.

As far as the Fuzzies are concerned, Scalzi didn't do anything that Piper didn't do. Both stories are cleverly wrought, and both get their basic message across. So the best I can say to anyone who is interested, is read both books. They're both worth some time.



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Sci-fi/Fantasy as Relevant Social Commentary

I published this on my writers' group blog (http://marylanddreamweavers.wordpress...) yesterday. It has already generated one very angry response from someone who accused me of being biased. Really? I can't imagine why.

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Long slandered as lacking in anything but escapism, science fiction and fantasy provide a virtually limitless tableau on which to build a story. As such they are ideal genres for satire and social/political commentary. Jonathan Swift used it three hundred years ago. H. G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs used it one hundred years ago. And in the twentieth century, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Philip Wylie, Robert Heinlein, and John Brunner (to name a few) used it to warn against the dangers of unbridled industrialization, political extremism, bigotry, and social elitism.

Add to this list H. Beam Piper who is best known today for introducing the world to Fuzzies. When my book group selected "Little Fuzzy" I recalled a cute fifty-year-old story about some playful, lovable mammals from a mining planet six hundred light years from Earth. When they are discovered by a prospector who adopts them, the reader settles in for a delightful diversion. But when old Jack realizes that they are far more than pets, he sets off a pitched battle that was a powerful allegory for the civil rights movement of the 1960s. On one side are Jack and his friends who believe the Fuzzies are sapient beings entitled to the same basic rights as the humans who have taken control of their planet. On the other is the big, bad Company that stands to lose its monopoly to exploit the planet's natural resources unless it can prove that the Fuzzies are mere animals.

Oddly, though it was also written during the heyday of the feminist movement, "Little Fuzzy" treats women rather gratuitously, except for one who acts heroically and actually turns the tide of the battle, which was typical of the way Negroes were portrayed in the books and movies of the previous decades. But give Piper his due. "Little Fuzzy" was a courageous, outspoken commentary on the American values of the time that inspired many other writers after his death.

It may be just coincidence, but as I was reading "Little Fuzzy" last week, the Attorney General of the United States announced that the Justice Department was entering the fight against reactionary forces that were attempting to deny ethnic and racial minorities their basic right to vote.