A single brilliant star glowed in the center of the screen: no one could have told, from this distance, that the sun had ever possessed planets or that one of them had been lost.

p. 218 Ballantine Books 1991

In Childhood’s End, Clarke kills off the human race and wipes out Earth.

First, he has disappear all human individuality, he asserts that Man has no place in the stars, and he gives us up to an inevitable evolutionary leap in mental prowess.

Clarke makes some problematic leaps in telling the narrative of the last generation:  People will be corralled into a stagnation of peace. They will let go of all creativity. They will lose the will to live once their children are gone.

Secondly, Man will give up space exploration as an unnecessary science, because a far superior technology exists that we could never rival and because there is so much still to be discovered here on Earth after all. (This is particularly striking to me at this time considering that the US’s last manned space flight took off this week. What would Clarke think of that?) To compound this assertion, when one traveler stows away Jonah in the whale style to the world of the Overlords, he struggles to deal with a few months in the new environment and is cowed, also contending that Man could not deal with what he would find or the enormity of the universe.

The build-up of the novel is that mankind is ready to take the evolutionary leap to lose all self and merge suddenly psychic minds into the Overmind, like the essence of the universe and his answer to religiosity and the Armageddon. He mixes end-of-the-world myth with paranormal as a grand explanation. Let me note that I did like the gimmick of why mankind has a deep and lingering concept of the devil. (Not going to say more and ruin that one for you.)

For historical context, the feelings of post-WWII and the beginning of the Cold War weigh heavily on Clarke’s creation of a Utopia on Earth after the Overlords arrive, with lingerings on themes such as total war, and on the exercise of their power mostly through psychological maneuvering.

This is science fiction, but asking the reader to suspend their disbelief that the evolutionary leap to a mind power could happen in one generation and could be the same across life forms in the universe is preposterous. Individuality is overrated, as declared by his comments on the final punch, when the children lose their physical forms and go to join the Overmind.  He makes the comparison to the individual parts making the mass in a colony of bacteria, or organs operating in a body, which I actually ascribe to.  Imagine all the working parts on this Earth, interacting and living and making up the history of humanity.  But important in that, and a theme in many works, is the human element both of unpredictability and of ingenuity. One cannot minimize these in any telling of humans as a collective entity.

I find these three ways of killing off the Earth objectionable and annoying.

But check the inside cover.

The opinions expressed in this book are not those of the author.

Thanks Mr. Arthur C. Clarke, but even if it is all in satire, I would contend that it did not adequately convey that.  As a whole the novel is not focused enough to be gripping or compelling in theme. There is mismatched pacing; the first portion is inordinately long compared to all that could be developed around the last part, such as when Jan returns or when George and Jean start their new life on Athens.  If you want to read in my opinion a better example of what Clarke is capable of, pick up Against the Fall of Night or Rendezvous with Rama.

But I am glad that Clarke does not believe in his heart that Man has no place in the stars.

(Note: 1 league = 3.45 miles)

If you wanted to write a book about all the cool places in the ocean, and if you were a scientist who had studied the classifications of many hundreds of species, you would write this book. What better frame: a professor, curious about everything, who gets invited on a fantastic-al submarine voyage, where he studies both the enigma of Nemo and the enigma of the seas. With creative yet impressive or too-convenient inventions, the furtive Captain Nemo takes Prof. Aronnax from wonder to wonder circling the globe–and then some.

Prepare yourself for awe. Verne wrote this I feel to talk about the splendid places below the waves that he could share his visions with the people of the 1850s. But I said to prepare yourself because the moments of awe are sometimes tucked in long paragraphs of descriptions of fish and fauna. Jules Verne loves himself a fish. He also loves a startling vista, which he offers many even fathoms under the ocean, and he loves a scene of human interest.

As the Scholastic Library Edition (SLE)’s introduction notes, Verne wrote about such types of invention as television, high-speed airplanes, atomic power, and of course submarines. I love the line “… When beginning to read it, many times I flipped back to the publishing date, shocked at the modern feel. Verne is good at explaining as much as necessary in a supremely believable way, enough to suspend belief to enjoy the story. Broadly, he contributed much to science fiction literature.

Let that not mislead you, Verne liked to wonder at technological contraptions and to include scientific calculations, but he is also a romantic through and through. “Perfume is the soul of the flower, and seaflowers, those splendid hydrophytes, have no soul,” (SLE p 283) the professor waxes a little internal sigh of missing land after being on the Nautilus so many months.

But consistently he is held in awe at the marine wonders, and there is a hint of danger laced within their travels, “‘No one has ever seen anything like it; but the sight may cost us dear. And if I must say all, I think we are seeing here things which God never intended man to see.’ Ned was right, it was too beautiful.” (SLE p 333), the professor notes, as they come to understand that they are lethally trapped in an iceberg in the Antarctic.

The professor character largely comes off as a wuss.  ”Oh, that must be kind of crummy for you Ned Land, I’m a professor and I enjoy classifying things for years on end but you must be very bored. Oh. Oh my.” And he carries a pedantic manner towards Conseil, whose description in the build-up: Flemish.  But that may have something to do with translation, as noted in Wikipedia’s articles on Verne and Twenty Thousand Leagues, the translators took many liberties and changed tone in some cases, especially with regards to Nemo.  From the few lines I’ve sampled, the translation I read (Scholastic, 1968) seems to be fairly straightforward and faithful.

In the set-up of the story Prof. Aronnax introduces Ned Land saying that they are “cemented in unchangeable friendship” but apart from some scenes of Ned this relationship is hardly developed.  Similarly, the crew is treated with extreme brevity. A dozen crew members came along. The crewmen rowed the boat. The crew pick-axed the ice off the frozen Nautilus. The crew mined for coal. The crew stored and prepared the giant dugong that we killed. The crew takes up oxygen (news flash that one).  But when the professor came to doctor the hurt crew member or when he beheld the crewman taken up by the poulp we saw very real people and human emotion.

The secret of Captain Nemo is an underlying tension to the events that unfold. The mystery of the captain is never clearly laid out/dispelled for us. We know he is misanthropic and hates despots, and seeks vengeance on the oceans for a lost family, but from what circumstance? This commander, tamer, forever-inhabitant of the oceans, why has he chosen to renounce humanity? Where is he from, how did he have the means to create this dream? Where does the love of humanity as extended to his crew fit in with his hate? When they killed the albatross near Bermuda, I was reminded somehow of the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, somewhat comically. But maybe it has meaning.

Some great resources for the reader: a map of their journey at least through the Atlantic (and the Pacific), cutaway view of the Nautilus, and the complete original French version online.

Another retelling, this of the Rumpelstiltskin fable.  I liked it fine.  The storyline ebbed and flowed, picking up different pieces well.  The characters’ feelings towards spinning, the baby were telling and fascinating for the reader.  It is skillful how the authors set up a lot of sympathy for the crippled spinner character but hold his wrongdoings and appearance in the story and end with his defeat.  One wonders whether to forgive his theft and presumption for the grain of pure heart he holds.

I wonder, which fairy tale is most often pondered and retold?  This and Beauty and the Beast are ones I’ve seen quite often, is there a special draw that these stories hold for an author?  Maybe a current that ties them together is the undefined identity and intentions of the villain characters, Rumpelstiltskin and the Beast.  Some authors choose to emphasize their villainy and others tell of the misrepresented soul forsaken in the sweep of history.

Personally, I think authors should feel free to take more leeway with these tales, to branch out from the hard and fast story line and make leaps of assumptions that lead to new truths.

(This is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast.) Kind of nice.  This book reminded me a lot of Spindle’s End.  Please pardon me, but for whatever reason, some of McKinley’s books do not agree with me.  Mainly I feel that the core story of Beauty and the Beast was neglected and most of the emphasis is on the back story, which I suppose is understandable and likely what she was going for.  But personally I get more enjoyment out of my shady perception of the tale and the Disney depiction.

First off there was a severe separation between the life with the sisters at home and the (short) life with the Beast in the castle.  The transition’s drama and emotional upheavals didn’t seem real.  The magic, integral to the story, was left murky where it could’ve been explained, and there were weird bits like one finds at the end of Spindle’s End.  Because after all magic has to make sense a little bit.

Secondly, none of the details of the fantasy world really struck me.  I felt like McKinley much more focused on the blacksmith shop and the garden by the little country house than the lawns and gardens of the castle.  But that’s not altogether true; Beauty’s room was a nice enough place that saw some setting development.  Importantly, though, I was severely unaware of what the Beast was supposed to look like and struggled to visualize him the whole time, even after he transformed.  His past self, the character in the painting, was well-played though.  And I think the character with the best development is the horse.

Overall, there are points where this book shines and others where I was left grasping.  But in the end it did not leave me with a strikingly different interpretation or probing look at the tale that I always knew.  So, sorry Ms. McKinley, but I’d say stick with the real greats, The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown.

Definitely enjoyable, a quaint view of a preacher’s flock in small-town Mitford, North Carolina.  Unlike some religious books, this story does not drown the reader with passages from the bible, barely masked sermons and declarations of divine faith.  It is an honest and heart-warming easy look at their daily lives.

Father Tim has led his flock in Mitford for over thirty years with nary a vacation– no time for one!  Besides conducting services, visiting parishioners and other regular duties, he suddenly becomes the owner and friend of a large scripture-loving dog, takes in a 11-year old who has had too much to bear, contracts diabetes, and finds stolen jewels in a church closet.

(It has also been made into a musical.)

1957 cover art, courtesy of monikalel42 on flickr

H.G. Wells 1895

Thanks Wishbone for exposing a young mind to another great story, this, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells.

This book harbors more than just the era-typical beginnings of sci-fi and drawing-room stories, topics of communism, social stratification and Darwin-ism murmur in its pages.  Furthermore, the cover portrays the most striking part of the book, the end where The Time Traveller witnesses the eclipsing of a very red, cold sun.  The rest of the tale revolves around H.G. Wells’ speculations on the direction humanity was headed, namely towards a complete stratification into two separate species in 800,000 years.  The “Haves” or Eloi live  in beautiful comfort but also ignorance, the “Have-nots” or Morlocks live below ground in darkness and savagery.  The future the inventor emerged into is humanity in decay.

His book is interesting and imaginative, although at times he speaks like the fluttering of a moth, the character tiring and resolving and worrying constantly.  I liked very much his imagined mechanics of time travel, with days blurring in and out to grey.  The Epilogue holds a gem not really explored in the book but great at an ending thought as a friend of the traveler reflects on what he has witnessed and his lost friend: “And I have by me, for my comfort, two strange white flowers–shrivelled now, and brown and flat and brittle–to witness that even when mind and strength had gone, gratitude and a mutual tenderness still lived on in the heart of man.”

And being a Doctor Who fan, I found this intriguing: “The Time Machine book appears in Doctor Who when the Doctor is reading the novel in the 1996 TV Movie. H.G. Wells’ story is the inspiration for many modern time travel science fiction, including Doctor Who.” ~ Monikalel42‘s flickr page

More on Richard Powers’ sci-fi cover art, or this fun selection of his images

From School Library Journal– An intriguing blend of historical fiction and mystery that will be appreciated by fans of either genre. Freelance samurai Matsuzo and Zenta are warned that the valley they are about to enter is an “unwholesome place after dark.” Rumors about a powerful spirit that haunts the area and the more tangible threat of an occupying army fail to dissuade the two, however, and they descend into the valley’s depths. The place is rife with intrigue and the samurai establish an uneasy existence among the locals, ever unsure of who is friend and who is foe. As the plot unfolds, the two warriors attempt to solve the mystery of the White Fox, a shadowy figure who might be the leader of a political rebellion or a supernatural spirit. This extremely well-researched work gives readers a real sense of what life was like in 16th-century Japan. As a mystery, it is methodically planned and resolved with no loose ends. The characters are all well developed and interestingly drawn and YAs will be as unsure as the samurai about whom to trust. The language is challenging and includes some Japanese words. This novel will expose teens to a fascinating period in world history. -Robyn Ryan Vandenbroek, formerly at Otterville Public School, Ontario. Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This might make more sense if I had started with the first Zenta & Matsuzo book.  I did like the historical aspects and some of the characters, but I don’t know how subtly the “plot unfolding” happened.  Intriguing thoughts presented, switching between characters could be a tad more perceptible?

Asimov completed this book much later than the first two in the series.  Knowing this, and curious to see if his writing style had changed, I would say that it is more descriptive (the book is indeed much longer) but altogether stays very much true to the voice of the other works.

This book is a triumphant tale for earthmen, the general progress of humanity, and productive compromise.  The murder mystery itself causes much consternation to both Elijah Baley and the reader, but it comes with many discoveries about the case that prevent throwing down the book in disgust.  Baley again delves into a foreign culture, this time with less encouragement and much more pressure, and finds that the Aurorans are not as perfect as they think suppose to be.It starts on earth where Baley has succeeded in putting together a group to begin to acclimate themselves to the outdoors and learn to live on a natural planet without the crutch of the City.  This is all well and good but the Spacers control all space travel and their allowance is needed for any new colonization to occur.  On Aurora this is the core of the fierce political battle dividing the legislature.  Spacers have become stagnant and isolated whereas earthmen have become coddled and dependent on the hive.  The Globalist party wants to see Aurorans and only Aurorans colonizing new worlds, but this will not be possible for them unless they use humaniform robots.  But the only scientist who has created them and could possibly know how to do so sees the folly in the Globalists’ plans and will not surrender his knowledge.  Lije Baley manages to solve the case only by navigating the political battle as well.

The new variable in this book is the robot Giskard (who has a big fan in Kate Barber =D ), a robot much more interesting and involved in the case than he may seem.  Asimov continues to use Baley to address important questions such as robot-human relations, humans’ romantic and familial relationships, and the Three Laws of Robotics.  In all three books, watch out for the statements in parentheses, there are some sucker-punch statements hidden in there.