Science Fiction

I love it. I don't know why. I used to think it was boring -I liked Star Wars, but I didn't want to read any books about plasma cannons or aliens. It just didn't seem interesting.

I think it started with Dune, Frank Herbert's book. My great-grandmother gave me her copy (as an aside, my great-grandma and I are the same person, 79 years apart. She sits around and reads all day, wants to be left the hell alone and has a load of turquoise jewelry), and out of respect for her and the prospect of a new book, I started reading it.

Within the first 2 pages, I was hooked. Absolutely hooked. This book wasn't aliens and funny guns that go pewpewpew when you shoot them and no plot -this was politics. This was and human nature and fear. This was amazing!

There are lasery type guns and big-ass sandworms and alien sorts of people, but they make the story real for its setting. The actual story is what got me. The tangled webs people weave, the politics and the science, the theocracy and the myths. It's an absolutely incredible piece of writing. I read it about twice a year, so I don't forget. And every time I pick it up I find something new about it that comes a little clearer, like washing off a muddy uncut diamond and seeing new ways that it will catch the light.

After I read Dune, I didn't have a sci-fi epiphany. I didn't immediately go out and see what there was to see where the genre is concerned. I more or less fell back into my original patterns -mostly fantasy, a little fiction-fiction, eventually some chick it. I hardly read fantasy anymore, honestly, because I have a hard time finding anything new in that genre. The book Legacy actually looks good, but there are just so many same-y fantasy books floating around anymore that it's not worth the effort. Suggestions I'll take, but I no longer have the urge to hunt down good fantasy.

Then I picked up some Terry Pratchett. Some Douglas Adams. And I tumbled headfirst into those -granted, I've only read a few of the Discworld books (I think I'd rather own them than check them out from the library. That doesn't feel right) and I've only read Hitchhiker's Guide once. These books are very different from Dune, but the same general principles applied. The focus was on the ideas, not the pewpewpew and the little green men.

Then came Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451 I have loved from the first time I picked up a copy of the book. Now I have it in graphic novel form as well, and oh my god. I can't get enough of it. If there was ever a book I'd sleep with my arms around, Fahrenheit 451 would totally be it. When I was in the hospital for a few days a couple of summers ago, I took a gigantic book with me -Bradbury's collected stories. I can hardly lift that book, but it kept me entertained and thinking while I was hooked up to an IV and getting contradictory results from various doctors. There's a reason the hospital here is known as Death Valley...but that's another story.

Then (then, then, then) I picked up a copy of the Jane Austen Book Club (which I would totally have joined. Also, Hugh Dancy is in the movie and that is just so much win) and discovered Ursula le Guin thanks to a relatively important plot point regarding her. She is by far one of the best sci-fi writers I have ever had the good fortune to read. Like Herbert, like Bradbury, le Guin is an idea writer. She examines a concept in an alien setting that is nevertheless a familiar or plausible concept. What if, she asks us in The Left Hand of Darkness, gender was a non-issue on some world? Thus comes Genly Ai, to explore it and discover what the answer is -in a way. I mean, it's just brilliant. The book is brilliant, the writing is brilliant... wow.

I watched A Scanner Darkly during winter or spring quarter at school, and the movie was decent. I am not Keanu Reeves' biggest fan, but he plays a drugged out narc really well. ;) So once summer hit, I decided I needed to check out the book. The movie made a striking point, and I wanted to see if the books was the same. It was (of course) better. So much better. Philip K. Dick is another writer who has my unending admiration.

All of these examples from someone who, for the majority of her life, claimed to despise or be uninterested in science fiction. Holy shit, man. Now I'm reading (slowly but surely) some Robert Silverberg. Jonah gave me a bunch of his books, so I've been reading those off and on when I remember that I have a bunch of books stored in my laptop (it still freaks me out a little, non-physical books. I like the Kindle, but I don't know if I'd want one, really)...

It's amazing, science fiction. I know as much of it is as pulpy as a lot of fantasy is -but, like with any genre, if you find a book or an author made of gold (or some fantastic otherworldly gem), you hang on with everything you've got.

A Scanner Darkly

Funny story about the title, actually. Once when I was watching the movie, a friend asked me what I was doing via text message. I answered "watching a scanner darkly" and he replied with the question "Why are you brooding over a copier?".

I've never been sure if he was kidding or not.

Regardless, the book is amazing, creepy, sometimes funny and overall a total trip. It broke my heart in more than one way, more than once. It's wonderful. The movie isn't bad either, so if you're looking for something to do this summer, check it out, for sure. Read the book first though. The book is better. The book is always better.

Here's my review. Comments are of course one of the biggest things I want, but just read it...if I can get one person to read a book (or not read a book, depending on what the review says) then I've done my job, and I'll feel like I accomplished something worthwhile. Failing that though, just leave me a comment. ;)

I finally finished A Scanner Darkly a couple of days ago. For such a short book, it took me a surprisingly long time to finish, largely because it freaked me out so much. I've seen the movie with Keanu Reeves, and that was a little disturbing, but the book? Much more so. Books are very personal for me. There's something about holding a book in my hands, reading, that makes it much more real for me than watching a movie, even on my laptop. Something about the distance between the screen and my mind creates a slight disconnect that makes it easier for me to walk away from a movie than from a book. I can think of a dozen movies I've started and never finished, or not finished for a long time (I started watching "Paris When it Sizzles" on my next to last day at school, and it's still in my laptop, unfinished and ignored), but I can't even think of a single book that I started without finishing it.

So for me to read ASD so slowly is unusual. It usually takes me maybe 2, 3 days tops to finish a book (unless it's something absurdly long, like the Fountainhead). ASD took me around 4 or 5 days to read. Dick's writing is not challenging to read -I suppose it could be if you're not used to reading sci-fi or really good literature, but it's nothing overly intellectual -but it's so plausible as a story that it's an intense read. At the end, when you find out that the story is largely based on autobiographical fact, the entire experiences takes on a much deeper level. The book is wonderful and sad and well-worth the read, no matter how long it takes.

I'll have a review up sometime today or tomorrow, so keep an eye out for a link to it.