Quick Review: Jack Vance's The Dying Earth

An exotic world hovering on the edge of time!From the back cover: “THE TIME is fabulously far from now; over the dying earth hovers a worn and burned-out sun; in the red day and fearful night strange creatures wander horribly through the frighted forests; magic governs man.  Revelry and sloth absorb the time as Earth spins its last few courses and prepares to plunge to eternal night.”

I can't believe it took me all these years to read this book! I've known about The Dying Earth for decades, threatened to read it just as long, and yet have always put it off. 

The book is actually a collection of Vance's earliest Dying Earth stories.  Each tale focuses on a different character for the most part, but they are not the main focus of the book anyway.  Not to say that the characterization is not there.  It definitely is.  Liane the Wayfarer is fleshed out in just so many pages more so than many characters in a series of novels.  Vance is perceptive when it comes to humanity, even when that humanity is simply waiting around to die.  And that, to me, is the BIG thing about this book. 

The setting is so rich and beautiful and developed that it is much like a character unto itself.  It shapes so much of even what the characters do and how they act.  In case, you aren't familiar with it, the stories are set so far in the future that the sun is swollen and red, and magic and technology are indistinguishable. 

I've noticed in some reviews that readers were put off by Vance's language.  Some of the words are archaic or from British usage, but that didn't bother me one bit.  If anything, it added to the alien feel of the far future setting.  To me, the book read like prose poetry, and I would even catch myself reading it aloud at times.

All of these books are being released as ebooks in authorized versions.  I will definitely be reading the other books in this series.  I only wish I hadn't waited so long.

Enjoy!

Quick Review: Harry Harrison's Homeworld

 Trapped Between Two WorldsFrom the back cover:

"Jan Kulozik is one of Earth's privileged elite.  A brilliant engineer, he enjoys all the blessings of a 23rd-century civilization which survived global collapse and conquered the stars.  Then he meets Sara, the beautiful, desirable agent of a rebel underground dedicated to smashing the iron rule of Earth's masters.  She shows him a sordid world he never dreamed existed!  And suddenly Jan has to choose - between slaves and masters.  His choice plunges him into a web of intrigue, assassanition and betrayal that will lead him to death . . . or to the stars."

I liked this book a lot.  It's the first book of the late, great Harry Harrion's To the Stars trilogy.  I read the second book back when I was in high school and only recently decided to read all three parts.

As far as dystopian fiction goes, I don't think there's anything new here. What makes the book, however, is Harrion's writing and characterization. The story moves briskly and smoothly throughout, and I admit, I did not expect the one big thing to happen at the end that happened. The main character is very capable, but not a superman. He is outsmarted by the baddies even when everything seems perfectly planned.

Even more impressive, Harrison is capable of telling his tale in a couple of hundred pages. The entire trilogy combined are not as long as a single volume in the ten book traps writers push off on readers today.

Fortunately, all three books (Homeworld, Wheelworld, and Starworld) have recently been released in ebook format, from Amazon at least.  If you prefer a hard copy, they're not too difficult to find at affordable prices from used online booksellers.

Definitely worth checking out. 

Enjoy!

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)

Ray Bradbury, the voice of America's pastIn one Facebook post concerning Bradbury’s death, someone commented that this event heralded the end of an era.  Others responded, agreeing or disagreeing, depending on how they interpreted the statement.  I didn’t comment one way or the other, but what struck me, however, was the fact that they saw Bradbury as someone BIG, someone defining, not simply a science fiction and fantasy writer.  With that sentiment, I agree wholeheartedly.  The way I see it, when we lost Ray Bradbury, we lost a part of America.

In several works, Bradbury wrote about small town America.  Several academics and book reviewers have written about this extensively, but really, you don’t have to do much more than look at some of his iconic works.  In “Mars is Heaven” (“The Third Expedition” in The Martian Chronicles), earth’s explorers find themselves in a mid-western town rather than the vast red wastes of Mars.  In Fahrenheit 451, he eulogizes what he considered “front porch society,” the meeting place where one would go to relax and chat, not just with your own family, but those next door and across the street.  Yes, this visionary and master of science fiction never let his eye stray too far off of the past.  He definitely kept small town America in the mind of his readers even while they were surrounded by the expanding, ever-quickening pace of the future.

The key element here, of course, is not mere nostalgia.  If you crave nostalgia, you can watch Andy Griffith reruns.  What we are shown through Bradbury’s works is the essential need of communication.  In Fahrenheit 451, people no longer meet to talk to one another; instead, they were immersed in the soap operatic lives presented by the wall screens.  People no longer read.  Books, of course, are a crucial form of communication.  They communicate ideas through the pages, the ideas stir something in us, and ideally, we communicate a response in words or deeds to those around us.  In his short story “The Pedestrian,” we see a similar fate.  The protagonist walks the streets alone.  He is a writer in a world without readers.  People stay home glued to their TVs, gray and ghostlike shadows huddling in the darkness.  Lifeless.  The city has become a graveyard.   In “The Veldt,” children immerse themselves into a virtual world.  As a result, they lose the ability to communicate and interact with their family.  These stories have become eerily real today as teens rather play video games or use some form of social media rather than talk face-to-face with one another.  In a world filled with 3D-CGI, Michael Bay explosions, and Halo, the past, sadly, isn’t so important.  There’s only the Now, only instant, selfish gratification blasting past at near light speeds.  

While the beauty and eloquence of Bradbury’s language echoes the images he created and the ideas he held true, the strength and legacy of Bradbury’s work resides, not in anything profound or visionary, but in all things simple and sincere: a community not afraid to communicate.  His writing gave voice to that part of America.  Now, that voice is silent.

Rest in peace.

Can John Carter Survive Today's Audiences?

Okay, this is scary.  Folks are predicting an epic fail for John Carter.  Why?  Well, you can read about that in this article that first appeared in The Hollywood Reporter: Disney Scrambles to Save its $250 Million Gamble. 

I think the promo people at Disney could've started by coming up with a better poster.My first thought is to blame the promoters.  Why haven't they emphasized the fact that this is John Carter OF MARS by EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS.  And why did they change the title form its original A Princess of Mars?  Well, I guess its Disney's tradition of princesses, and they didn't want the unkowning public to think this was one of their "princess" films, which could alienate (snicker) the male audience.  Then why not call it something pulpy like John Carter and the Princess of Mars?  You emphasize the hero (say, like Indiana Jones) and you pay homage to the source material.  Why not promote the creator and all he's done for science fiction and fantasy?  Who knows?

And then I have to wonder if the source material is too old.  Yes, it has inspired more material than I can possible list, let's just throw Star Wars out as an example, but is John Carter too heroic for today's audiences.  Burroughs's characters were, without a doubt, heroic and good.  The women were beautiful, needed to be rescued, and madly in love with the hero (even though she played hard to get).  I've already noticed they're turning Dejah into a warrior woman.  I can live with that, but I beg them not to turn JC into the brooding, insecure whiner which fills books and films today, let's throw Anikin from Star Wars out there as an example.  What's wrong with a hero being , well, heroic.  For some reason, that concept is dated and laughable to a lot of young folk today.

So, I guess I really blame those pour souls raised on recent films (say, like anything by Michael Bay) which is nothing more than a series of action sequences and lots of computer animation.  John Carter is definitely going to have its share of CGI (which always makes me nervous), but a lot of the discussion I've seen online has JC being called a rip off of AVATAR!  What!?  This, just to let you know, ticks me off greatly.  It's bad enough that these folks only acknowledge movies made within the last year or two as the only ones being worthy of watching, but it's worse that they have no conception of anything existing before the soulless tripe they love to watch so much.  I would love to look those folks in the eyes and ask how a film based on a book written about a hundred years ago could rip off something made a few years ago.  But then I stop, take a deep breath, and remember who I imagine I'm talking to.  Yes, the viewing public who would make the movie has already judged John Carter and found it wanting.  So is there any hope despite what the promoters will do?  I don't know.  I hope so.

I'd love to see the first three Barsoom books on film anyway - and Disney had planned on more than one film - but now, it looks grim.   John Carter may have saved Barsoom, but sadly, I don't know if he'll be able to save this film.

Quite Quotable

"Failure leads to maturity; maturity leads to success."

Steven Brust, Jhereg