Considered one of the fathers of science fiction, Wells wrote dozens of novels starting in the late 19th century as well as dozens more non-fiction books that often dealt with science, history, and socialism. The novels sometimes come of as a bit dated today and the actual science is fairly week. Even though Wells was fairly educated on scientific matters the science fiction is usually just an excuse to advance the plot, which was often a morality tale. But they are still entertaining quick reads for the most part and are extremely influential with many films and other books based around the themes he first wrote about. They popularized ideas like alien invasions and time travel, which have become staples of science fiction over the last century.
Time Machine
His first novel is probably the weakest of the four I mention in these posts as far as plot goes, but it is a decent read and popularized the idea of time travel. The basic plot is a man invents a time machine and travels over 800,000 thousand years into the future. Mankind has been transformed into two races the lazy and peaceful Eloi and the brutal workers known as Morlocks. The time traveler rescues an Eloi named Weena and they have to escape an attack from the Morlocks. The time traveler escapes even further into the future and sees the earth as a dying planet rules by crab creatures. He returns to the present to recount his adventure to his contemporaries and then goes further into the future never to return.
People are still using a lot of the themes from this book, but the book itself reads more like a simple socialist morality tale than a really interesting story. The themes of a people losing their humanity because they are either idle or worked to hard is a bit heavy handed and is still being recycled in current movies like Elysium. Most other time travel stories afterwards have dealt with more interesting themes like people going to try to change or observe the past or being fish out of waters in the future. Its not a bad book, but it feels mostly dated and the point is the morality tale not the time travel.
Its appropriate for early teen readers and older, though they may find parts of it a bit boring.
Island of Dr Moreau
This was his third novel and of the four novels I have read by him I think this is easily the most interesting one. The plot revolves around an English shipwreck victim named Prendick who arrives on a Pacific island run by Dr. Moreau. Moreau it turns out has been performing painful experiments on animals like pumas and the result is an island filled with bizarre hybrids like human/pig, hyena/pig, and a bear/dog/horse named M'ling. Moreau has been attempting to turn animals into humans, but they always revert back into the beastly natures despite the restrictions such as no walking on four legs that Moreau imposes on them. Eventually Prendick becomes more used the creations over time, but Moreau is killed by one of his creations. Prendick has to escape the island by raft after the supplies and boats are destroyed. It has a wonderful ending where he arrives back in England and sees the people there reverting back to what he sees as their animal nature and is forced to leave civilization.
This is the most interesting of these novels since the plot is complex and original, there are several detailed characters instead of the bland ones he usually uses, the setting is memorable, and it has interesting moral issues that integrate into the whole story well. He tackles themes of the morality of vivisection and animal experiments, what separates man from animals, how societies attempt to control behavior, and the morality of inflicting cruelty and pain on others in the goal of advancement of science and knowledge. He didn't have any knowledge of modern genetic engineering, but this is an obvious source for future stories about that issue as well as the basic plot is a mad scientist manipulating the nature of living creatures to advance his ideas.
This novel is appropriate for teens though their is a good bit of violence and things like torture are mentioned frequently. It will be interesting to most readers.
The next post will have reviews of Wells' The Invisible Man and War of the Worlds.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Mark Clifton
Mark Clifton was not that prominent of an author in the 1950's, but he did have one decent and fairly influential novel. Mostly he wrote about issues dealing with the upcoming computer revolution, artificial intelligence, and about telepathy. He wrote a few popular short stories as well, notably What Have I Done? and Star Bright.
They'd Rather Be Right
This novel was originally serialized in Astounding, was co-written with Frank Riley, was the second novel to win a Hugo, and also republished as The Forever Machine. This is one of the earliest novels dealing with the issues of artificial intelligence and computers. The plot is two scientists create an intelligent computer called Bossy that will solve any problem dispassionately and objectively when presented with enough correct information. Bossy can be hooked up to a person's brain and will rejuvenate people's bodies and make them young again and practically immortal by removing conflicts in their mind. But the price is you give up many of your previously held beliefs and understandings, hence the two titles. Conflicts ensue as everybody (politicians, business leaders etc.) now wants Bossy for themselves or for no one to have it.
The novel and writing style was very dated when I read it years ago as was a lot of the technology and the writing itself is not that great, but the ideas were interesting enough. Really most sci-fi novels like this dealing with computers and AI that were written decades ago (such as the similar novel When Harlie Was One) feel very dated when dealing with these issues even when they do bring up interesting concepts. This is mostly worth reading since the ideas of the book were fairly new at the time and are influential for later writers.
Its appropriate for a older teen audience, but I am not sure how many would enjoy it. A lot of the anti-authority themes might be appealing to some readers and it has some thought provoking themes at the very least.
They'd Rather Be Right
This novel was originally serialized in Astounding, was co-written with Frank Riley, was the second novel to win a Hugo, and also republished as The Forever Machine. This is one of the earliest novels dealing with the issues of artificial intelligence and computers. The plot is two scientists create an intelligent computer called Bossy that will solve any problem dispassionately and objectively when presented with enough correct information. Bossy can be hooked up to a person's brain and will rejuvenate people's bodies and make them young again and practically immortal by removing conflicts in their mind. But the price is you give up many of your previously held beliefs and understandings, hence the two titles. Conflicts ensue as everybody (politicians, business leaders etc.) now wants Bossy for themselves or for no one to have it.
The novel and writing style was very dated when I read it years ago as was a lot of the technology and the writing itself is not that great, but the ideas were interesting enough. Really most sci-fi novels like this dealing with computers and AI that were written decades ago (such as the similar novel When Harlie Was One) feel very dated when dealing with these issues even when they do bring up interesting concepts. This is mostly worth reading since the ideas of the book were fairly new at the time and are influential for later writers.
Its appropriate for a older teen audience, but I am not sure how many would enjoy it. A lot of the anti-authority themes might be appealing to some readers and it has some thought provoking themes at the very least.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Max Brooks
Max Brooks has written two of the best selling science fiction books of the last decade, both of which cover the overdone subject of a zombie uprising. The son of the director Mel Brooks has also written 2 graphic novels along with other comic books, has appeared in a few films and animated features as an actor, and was a writer for Saturday Night Live.
The Zombie Survival Guide
His first book was not a novel, but a satirical guide to surviving a zombie uprising or apocalypse. It has various sections on how zombies came to exist, what to do in various situations like finding yourself trapped on the second story of a house with zombies below, what supplies to prepare ahead of time, and gives examples of past zombie attacks and what we can learn from them. Some of the advice is actually practical and the main selling point of the book is that it keeps a straight serious tone throughout despite the subject matter and he goes into good detail on subjects like why you shouldn't use fire against zombies (it won't stop them and they will stumbling along setting other potential fires.) These are for the most part traditional zombies with the slow walk, slow incubation period for the infection, and very low intelligence that can only be destroyed by destroying the brain. An entertaining quick read for the most part, but not a huge amount of commentary or depth and if you don't care for survivalist or zombie tropes, you might not like it.
World War Z
This followup novel is written as an oral history after the world wide zombie wars have ended. It is much deeper than the zombie survival guide, but that book is referenced as a creation of the narrator and it was used in the war as a training manual. Each section is an interview of a different survivor, each from a unique setting and time period of the war: from the first outbreak, the spread of the zombie virus across the world, the zombie victory, the push back against the zombies, and the clean up after the victory. Each story stands on its own, with my personal favorites of the Japanese man who is so tied to his computer he doesn't realize the uprising has destroyed his neighborhood and must now survive, the defense of Israel from the giant onslaught, and the battle of Yonkers, which ends up taking out a lot of celebrities.
There is a good mix of action, social commentary, plot twists, humor, horror, memorable characters, and a epic scale of drama. I enjoyed this book so much I read it twice, which is very rare for me.
For the most part these books are appropriate for high school age, but there is a lot of zombie violence so be prepared for that. There was a decent feature film based extremely loosely on this book, but it lacks the humor and insight of the novel, has fast zombies, and is told as a singular story about one character that has a very different plot from the book. It really should have been an HBO style miniseries instead and hopefully it will be remade as that someday. A very similar title is Warday, which was a fictional oral history of a nuclear war set in the 1980s. That is meant as more of a cautionary tale and the social commentary hasn't aged well, but is a decent story and I wouldn't be surprised if Brooks was inspired in part by it. There are plenty of other zombie series out there, but two other fairly recent ones I would suggest if you like this are Monster Island (a dark humor story about zombies taking over New York) and the best selling and very dark graphic novel series The Walking Dead, which is about life after the zombies have won.
The Zombie Survival Guide
His first book was not a novel, but a satirical guide to surviving a zombie uprising or apocalypse. It has various sections on how zombies came to exist, what to do in various situations like finding yourself trapped on the second story of a house with zombies below, what supplies to prepare ahead of time, and gives examples of past zombie attacks and what we can learn from them. Some of the advice is actually practical and the main selling point of the book is that it keeps a straight serious tone throughout despite the subject matter and he goes into good detail on subjects like why you shouldn't use fire against zombies (it won't stop them and they will stumbling along setting other potential fires.) These are for the most part traditional zombies with the slow walk, slow incubation period for the infection, and very low intelligence that can only be destroyed by destroying the brain. An entertaining quick read for the most part, but not a huge amount of commentary or depth and if you don't care for survivalist or zombie tropes, you might not like it.
World War Z
This followup novel is written as an oral history after the world wide zombie wars have ended. It is much deeper than the zombie survival guide, but that book is referenced as a creation of the narrator and it was used in the war as a training manual. Each section is an interview of a different survivor, each from a unique setting and time period of the war: from the first outbreak, the spread of the zombie virus across the world, the zombie victory, the push back against the zombies, and the clean up after the victory. Each story stands on its own, with my personal favorites of the Japanese man who is so tied to his computer he doesn't realize the uprising has destroyed his neighborhood and must now survive, the defense of Israel from the giant onslaught, and the battle of Yonkers, which ends up taking out a lot of celebrities.
There is a good mix of action, social commentary, plot twists, humor, horror, memorable characters, and a epic scale of drama. I enjoyed this book so much I read it twice, which is very rare for me.
For the most part these books are appropriate for high school age, but there is a lot of zombie violence so be prepared for that. There was a decent feature film based extremely loosely on this book, but it lacks the humor and insight of the novel, has fast zombies, and is told as a singular story about one character that has a very different plot from the book. It really should have been an HBO style miniseries instead and hopefully it will be remade as that someday. A very similar title is Warday, which was a fictional oral history of a nuclear war set in the 1980s. That is meant as more of a cautionary tale and the social commentary hasn't aged well, but is a decent story and I wouldn't be surprised if Brooks was inspired in part by it. There are plenty of other zombie series out there, but two other fairly recent ones I would suggest if you like this are Monster Island (a dark humor story about zombies taking over New York) and the best selling and very dark graphic novel series The Walking Dead, which is about life after the zombies have won.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Walter M. Miller Jr
Walter M. Miller was a Catholic writer who mainly wrote short stories, but he best known for his Hugo award winning novel A Canticle for Leibowitz. He lived a reclusive life and only wrote one other novel, a sequel he had almost finished before his death called Saint Leibotwitz and the Wild Horse Women.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
This is widely considered to be one of the greatest post apocalyptic novels ever written. Post apocalyptic novels deal with a near future world shortly after some great event (rise of zombies, asteroid, nuclear war, etc.) has wiped out modern civilization and most modern technology. This is a collection of 3 connected stories, with the first beginning 600 years after a global nuclear war. After the nuclear war there was a mass destruction of learning and technology by many of the survivors. A US military engineer named Leibowitz founded a Catholic monastic order and the 3 stories are about monks in his order and the attempt to preserve technology and knowledge.
The first story deals with a monk, Brother Francis, who stumbles upon a fallout shelter that contains many relics from Leibowitz's life written down on ancient memo pads. He rewrites one document as an illumination and attempts to bring it and original documents to the Pope to help canonize Leibowitz, but is beset by wandering bands of fallout mutants called Pope's Children. The second act is set 600 years later, and centers around a new renaissance of learning with the scientist Thon Taddeo reconstruction of electrical generators based partly on the Leibowitz documents. Meanwhile, the city states of Texarkana and Laredo are planning to attack the city of Denver to gain control of a large part of North America and this results in a church schism. In the third act, set another 600 years in the future, nuclear power and space flight have both been rediscovered and the world is on the brink of another nuclear war between two great powers in Europe and the Americas. New Rome has plans for escaping the earth to continue life and knowledge on colonized planets, which becomes necessary after nuclear war breaks out again.
The novel has many major thematic elements. The most obvious one is the recurrence of history with parallels to what happened to Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. The necessity for civilization in the preservation of knowledge over time and the conflict between church and state are both repeatedly brought up. There is also a major discussion of the Catholic ethics of euthanasia between a priest and a government official in the third act.
On the whole this novel is appropriate for most older teens and it contains intelligent discussions of major religious and ethical themes.. There is a good bit of violence, but it is for thematic or religious points and isn't gratuitous. There are a lot of books that deal with similar post apocalyptic settings (Warday, World War Z, The Road, The Postman, etc.), but those almost all focus on what it would be like to live and survive in that sort of setting. This is much more focused on permanent themes and the nuclear apocalypse is more of an excuse to explore those themes.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
This is widely considered to be one of the greatest post apocalyptic novels ever written. Post apocalyptic novels deal with a near future world shortly after some great event (rise of zombies, asteroid, nuclear war, etc.) has wiped out modern civilization and most modern technology. This is a collection of 3 connected stories, with the first beginning 600 years after a global nuclear war. After the nuclear war there was a mass destruction of learning and technology by many of the survivors. A US military engineer named Leibowitz founded a Catholic monastic order and the 3 stories are about monks in his order and the attempt to preserve technology and knowledge.
The first story deals with a monk, Brother Francis, who stumbles upon a fallout shelter that contains many relics from Leibowitz's life written down on ancient memo pads. He rewrites one document as an illumination and attempts to bring it and original documents to the Pope to help canonize Leibowitz, but is beset by wandering bands of fallout mutants called Pope's Children. The second act is set 600 years later, and centers around a new renaissance of learning with the scientist Thon Taddeo reconstruction of electrical generators based partly on the Leibowitz documents. Meanwhile, the city states of Texarkana and Laredo are planning to attack the city of Denver to gain control of a large part of North America and this results in a church schism. In the third act, set another 600 years in the future, nuclear power and space flight have both been rediscovered and the world is on the brink of another nuclear war between two great powers in Europe and the Americas. New Rome has plans for escaping the earth to continue life and knowledge on colonized planets, which becomes necessary after nuclear war breaks out again.
The novel has many major thematic elements. The most obvious one is the recurrence of history with parallels to what happened to Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. The necessity for civilization in the preservation of knowledge over time and the conflict between church and state are both repeatedly brought up. There is also a major discussion of the Catholic ethics of euthanasia between a priest and a government official in the third act.
On the whole this novel is appropriate for most older teens and it contains intelligent discussions of major religious and ethical themes.. There is a good bit of violence, but it is for thematic or religious points and isn't gratuitous. There are a lot of books that deal with similar post apocalyptic settings (Warday, World War Z, The Road, The Postman, etc.), but those almost all focus on what it would be like to live and survive in that sort of setting. This is much more focused on permanent themes and the nuclear apocalypse is more of an excuse to explore those themes.
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