Echoes of Flavio's Ghost Dreaming

In conversation with someone I had just been introduced to at a friend's birthday the topic of science fiction and fantasy came up. I did declare that I like science fiction and am not as keen on fantasy in general (with exceptions). My interlocutor winced. She likes fantasy and hates science fiction. Curiously, she likes Star Wars. I pointed out that to me SW looks a bit more like fantasy rather than SF. Science fiction to me is not about spaceships and space dogfights with death rays, it is not about alien invasions. It is about asking some big questions, why are we in the universe, why is there a universe and what else there could be out there.

Philip K Dick doesn't do spaceships, Neal Stephenson doesn't much do spaceships -there is one spaceship in Anathem but that is almost incidental-. I see why Stephenson prefers to call what he does 'speculative fiction', given that 'sci-fi' has acquired some facile, trashy connotations. Isaac Asimov in an essay was making a distinction between 'sci-fi' and science fiction. Tried to find the article in question but only found this reference to it: https://www.sarahfobes.com/sci-fi/asimov-on-science-fiction/ -I pretty much concur in his appreciation of the subject -but I would go beyond what appears in the paragraph I quote and refer back to the big questions, perhaps unanswerable ones.

“Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today — but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all.”

“We can define “sci-fi” as trashy material sometimes confused, by ignorant people, with Science Fiction. Thus, Star Trek is Science Fiction, while Godzilla Meets Mothra is sci-fi.”

“What’s importance about science fiction, even crucial, is the very thing that gave it birth-the perception of change through technology. It is not that science fiction predicts this particular change or that that makes it important, it is that it predicts change. It is change, continuing change inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the word as it will be – and naturally this means that there must be an accurate perception of the world as it will be. This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our Everyman, must take on a science fictional way of thinking, whether he likes it or not or even whether he knows it or not. Only so can the deadly problems of today be solved.”

I don't think I normally post about things I watch on telly. Which, these days, means really Netflix and Amazon Prime. Mostly because I don't watch much telly in any format. I watch a few minutes of news in the morning until I get depressed of the news and switch it off.

Couple of things I have been watching of late, though:
- Death, Love & Robots: some are very grim but they're short, very well made and make their point in very few brushstrokes. I really like the series.
- Picard: I never saw TNG back there then. I've been catching up on that in bits of late -now barely on Season 2. So a lot of the references and subtext in S1 were a bit lost on me but I enjoyed it nonetheless. And did enjoy S2 in spite of a few inevitable tropes and the ending. Enjoyed it much more than what I've seen so far of TNG.
- Sandman: Saw episode 1, will probably continue. Didn't grab me as hard as I thought it would but I liked it enough that I'll probably persevere with it. I never read the comic or watched previous movie so there is that, I have no preconceptions.
- Rings of Power: I'm not going to bother with this. I love Tolkien but this is ... well, it's not Tolkien, for starters. It didn't stir anything in me other than a 'what? no, really? No.'

Of course my viewing is heavily tilted towards science-fiction and a bit of fantasy. And I prefer science-fiction to fantasy. You won't see me watching period dramas very often (period meaning those late 19th Century things). Not a lot of horror or crime either, real life seems to be a little bit too full of both.

The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I liked this one even more than the first one. Now I'm half-way through the third instalment. Bit grim at times but a very good story and the characters are credible -if a lot of what they do break a lot of laws of physics! and the geological setting is a bit improbable. But it is a very good story, very well told.



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Proxima by Stephen Baxter

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Re-reading this one. Loved the story and the characters but the end was so... disconcerting. Felt like left hanging on with few possibilities ahead.



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Lockstep by Karl Schroeder




Here is another interesting take on the old 'How can we have a space faring civilisation without Faster than Light travel?'. The author's solution is to make all the people populating those orphan planets he assumes there to be in the space between the sun and Proxima Centauri have a synchronised hibernation. They all go to sleep at the same time and sleep for 360 months for each one they're awake, while in the meantime their robots exploit and grow their resources and their ships take them while asleep on those journeys that take years in real time but only weeks to them. It's a good plot idea and although there are possible flaws it mostly works. The story, however, is a little weak and seems to be very much aimed at a teenage audience, complete with cute sentient pets and daring rescues. The characters also follow this trend and are a bit difficult to believe, in particular Toby's 'younger' (now much older) siblings. It is still a good read, however and I enjoyed it.

This was the set book for the Bibliogoth meeting for September 2017.



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Walkaway by Cory Doctorow

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


It took me a little bit to get into the world of the book, but once it grabbed me I couldn’t let go until I finished it. The high-tech near-future world of the book is in the hands of a few mega-rich and the rest struggle to survive. Four young people decide to join the ‘walk-aways’, people who leave mainstream society and set out on their own. The strife that follows, as well as the main cause of that strife (which you only find out half-way through the book) defines the plot of the book. Some of it really stretches your suspension of disbelief to almost breaking point but it all is quite well done and holds together. The main characters are well drawn, believable for the most part. I enjoyed this book a lot.



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Had never seen the film until last night. To say that it is 'loosely' based on Asimov's work doesn't even begin to touch it. 'Remotely inspired' doesn't even get there either. There's just a couple of names from the books and a couple of quotes of the Three Laws and that's it. And that wilting lily is Asimov's fearsome Dr Susan Calvin? No way....