"The Years of Rice and Salt" by Kim Stanley Robinson

The year is 1405 A.D. and as scouts of Timur the Lame's Mongol army ride into Eastern Europe they encounter an empty land and the remnants of a civilisation that has been wiped out by plague. The premise for the novel is an alternative history for the next 800 years in which the black plague eradicated 99 percent of Europe's population at this point in time instead of roughly one-third, as occurred in reality. History is therefore written largely by China, India and the Islamic world of Central Asia and the Middle East. The story is broken up into ten "books", each of which is set in different parts of the world at different points in history and with a new set of living people, which are in fact reincarnations of the same characters, all part of a cosmic "jati", a group of souls whose past and future lives are always intertwined. In the first book, a exiled Mongolian horseman, Bold, wanders through the dead lands of Eastern Europe before being captured by Arabic slavers and sold to a Chinese treasure fleet, led by the famous Chinese admiral Zheng-He, where he meets an African slave boy, Kyu. The two disembark at China in Hangzhou and work briefly at a restaurant for Madame I-Li and her husband Shen, who Kyu murders before setting fire to the shop and making an escape to Beijing with Bold in tow. The two get mixed up in the politics of the emperor's court and are eventually executed. In another story, A Sufi wanderer Bistami is appointed as a zamindar in Agra, India in the times of the Mughal emperor Akbar, before being exiled to Mecca where he eventually goes on to travel across the Sahara and Gibraltar strait to the newly-populated lands of Al-Andulus (modern Spain). There he meets the Sultana Katima and her husband Sultan Mawji Darya who are travelling into the lands north of the Pyrenees mountains to establish a new township in the uninhabited lands of what is modern France. In each story, reincarnated versions of the same characters are identified to the reader through a common use of the first letter in their names (i.e. B, K, I, P, Z, S etc.). The "K" character is passionate, short-tempered and fights for justice in the world by lashing out, often at his/her fellow jati members; "B" is kind, gentle and always supportive of his/her fellow members; "I" is ever curious, scholarly and rational; "Z" a figure of power; "P" a wanderer who weaves in and out of the stories, and "S" is often the antagonist of the other members, always set in a position to challenge them. Between each life, the characters return to the "bardo" (from Budhism) for judgement by the gods and to await reincarnation where they ponder their gains and losses on the "great wheel" of death and rebirth, working their way towards enlightenment.

The stories through the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries mostly involve historical events and people very similar to our own history; eventually the Chinese sail across the pacific and conquer the western half of the new world, while muslims from repopulated Europe and West Africa conquer the eastern side of the Americas. A kind of scientific renaissance in Samarqand results in discoveries in chemistry, the speed of sound and development of the laws of gravitation. When Japan is invaded and annexed by the Chinese, Japanese exiles move to North America and banding with the Hodenosaunee tribes of the East coast form a native North American nation that resists the colonies of the old world and becomes a successful world power centuries later. In the 18th century an industrial and scientific revolution in the Indian provence of Travancore sets off a new Indian world power. Eventually rebellion and religious tensions in China's west lead to full-scale war that rages across the globe for over 60 years between the Islamic world and the allied powers of China, Travancore and the Hodenosaunee. The end of the war comes with a treaty that sees Islamic nations surrendering and paying reparations to China and her allies, but at the cost of over a billion lives and China withdrawing from Japan and giving large amounts of territory in Northern Asia to the Japanese. The military dictatorship in China that came to power during the war years is eventually overthrown more than thirty years later and the last chapter of the novel presents a world similar to our own in terms of modern science, politics, environmental issues etc.

Overall this was a really great book; the premise was a very interesting thought experiment and the story is rich in the history, philosophies and cultures of Asia and the Middle East. I really liked the use of the jati to connect together the flow of the story and to give it direction, to feel for the characters and their struggle. Much of the focus of the novel is on social history, women's liberties, the divide between poor and rich with eastern philosophies used to study the theories of the cyclic or linear nature of history and the role of the individual shaping history or history shaping the individual. I particularly enjoyed the chapters "Awake to Emptiness", which provided a kind of play on characters and storytelling styles in "Journey to the West" (probably better know to some as "Monkey Magic" :), even suggesting that "B" is in fact a reincarnation of Monkey himself); and "Nsara" in which Islamic feminism, student activism and scientific breakthroughs collide in post-war Europe. On a slightly negative note, it's perhaps the ending (last chapter) that lets the book down; it starts to gets a bit too dictatorial with the long discussions on history, which to be frank are a bit boring and feel like Stanley-Robinson is trying to give us a classroom lesson. I felt like the story got a bit lost and I'm not sure I really felt satisfied that there was any real resolving of the struggle of the characters. That said, there was rarely a dull moment in the preceding chapters (with the exception perhaps of "Warp and Weft") which is an achievement for a book with over 750 pages. That said, I'm a bit biased, because I really do like Kim Stanley-Robinson's books and so I can understand that others might not have found it so exciting.

Overall really happy with this one and definitely recommended for anyone willing to put in the time.

"Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut

The narrator of "Cat's Cradle" is John, a writer who sets out to write a book entitled "The Day the World Ended", focussing on the human side of the events of August 6th 1945 when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. The book is narrated from the future at the end of the novel, as the narrator recollects the events that brought him to where he is now. During his research for his original book he corresponds with two of the three children of the late Dr. Felix Hoenikker, fictionally attributed as the "father" and inventor of the atomic bomb. Dr. Hoenikker's now grown-up children Newt and Angela talk of their father's eccentric personality and his detached approach to their upbringing. Felix was a strange genius who playfully pursued unsolved problems and new inventions based on his mood and fickle interests. Towards the end of his life, Dr. Hoenikker secretly invented a substance, "Ice-Nine", a sort of isotope of water which solidifies at room temperature and transforms all other water it touches into the same substance. When Felix dies on Christmas eve at his family's holiday home at Cape Cod, his three children divide the small quantity of Ice-Nine amongst themselves, with the intent of keeping the existence of the substance a secret. However, all three children succumb to using part of their share to get ahead in the world; Angela marries a handsome weapons research scientist in the U.S.; Newt has a brief affair with a Ukrainian dancer, who subsequently steals part of his portion before returning to the Soviet Union. Frank Hoenikker, Felix's other child, finds himself washed up on the shores of the Caribbean island of San Lorenzo (after a series of run-ins with a Cuban smuggling ring) where he is taken in by the island's dictator "Papa" Monzano and made the small nation's Major General, secretly in exchange for his portion of Ice-Nine.

The narrator's research eventually brings him to San Lorenzo, and by co-incidence Angela and Newt have caught the same flight to attend's their brother's wedding with the island's most beautiful woman and adopted daughter of Papa Monzano, Mona. On the flight the narrator also meets Mr. and Mrs. Crosby, who are emigrating to San Lorenzo to try and start a bicycle manufacturing business and Mr. Horlick Minton, the recently appointed U.S. Ambassador to San Lorenzo, who is accompanied by his wife Claire. It is at this point in the story that the narrator is first introduced to "Bokonism", a fictional religion, outlawed on San Lorenzo but practised by almost all it's population. From the beginning of the novel as the narrator recalls the events of the story, he has identified himself as a "Bokonist", a religion whose central tenets revolve around the folly of "truth" and the absurdity of life and the universe. It's founder Lionel Boyd Johnson arrived at the island by shipwreck more than forty years ago and is a cult figure on the island, living in hiding. When the narrator arrives he learns that "Papa" is near death, and is coerced by Frank Hoenikker into accepting the position of Papa's replacement as the president of the island. Frank, who was to be President, desires only to be left to his position of running the "technical" aspects of the nation, shying away from having to deal with people.

During a ceremony at Papa's castle to commemorate San Lorenzans who lost their life while in transit to fight with the allies in the second world war, the narrator is hurried into Papa's room by his physician who has found him dead and frozen solid. Papa has ended his suffering by drinking the small vial of Ice-Nine he carries on a chain around his neck. Recalling a previous story of Dr. Felix Hoenikker given by his supervisor at his old research laboratory in which a U.S. army general requested Dr. Hoenikker to invent a substance that could instantly turn mud into solid ice, the narrator puts two and two together and realises that Ice-Nine exists and that Frank had brought it with him to San Lorenzo. The narrator calls in the Hoenikker children and they attempt to hide the body and decontaminate the Papa's room of all traces of Ice-Nine. Through an incredible stroke of bad luck (or perhaps just fate as a Bokonist might interpret it), a plane crashes into one side of the castle during the war remembrance ceremony and during the ensuing landslide of one section of the castle, Papa's body is thrown into the sea, setting of a chain reaction that freezes all the world's oceans and essentially ends most life on the entire planet.

Surviving the apocalypse within an underground bomb shelter, the narrator spends the next months writing a book about the events. A handful of the characters survive and continue to live from within a sheltered cave. One day while foraging for supplies, the narrator comes across Bokonon himself who is pondering what the last words of his life's work, "The Books of Bokonon" should be. Bokonon states that if here were a younger man he would write a statement on the stupidity of humanity and take his book to the highest peak of San Lorenzo before consuming the Ice-Nine that covers all, presumably sparking an idea for what the narrator should do himself.

"Cat's Cradle" is both hilarious and depressing at the same time. The fundamental subject matter of the novel is deeply depressing; the characters live lonely lives, strive to make a difference or make sense of the world around them and nothing is ever understood, all their endeavours futile and pointless and everything and everyone is wiped away to oblivion at the end of the novel. There is no catharsis. But overlaying the fundamental themes, Vonnegut writing is funny, gentle, personal and original. His characters are fantastic; he uses a lot of contrasting caricatures but the characters still contain so much depth. I love the way they reveal themselves through the conversations they have with the narrator. The novel challenges religion, scientific progress and war, and provides a fairly strong critique of these three. Bokonism is playfully self-deprecating, declaring itself to be nothing but shameless lies (with it's many amusing and interesting concepts and words for fate and the mystical interactions of different people's lives). It's message is that life is absurd and random; God's plan will never be understood and chance, connection and coincidence lead to events that humans have no control over. Like "Slaughterhouse Five" the book also carries fairly strong anti-war themes, with parallels to be drawn between the Ice-Nine apocalypse and the potential consequences of the nuclear arms race (which was in full swing during the cold war era in which the book was written).

This was a really great book, which I thoroughly enjoyed (like "Slaughterhouse Five"). The writing is funny, very engaging and easy to read with a frenetic pace to the story and presentation, so a lot is covered in a short number of pages with no fluff and boring bits. Recommended reading, but be warned you might feel fairly depressed by the end of it.

"Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner

Written in the 1960s, "Stand on Zanzibar" is fictional account of the future world of 2010, told using a series of different techniques including story threads with central characters, vignettes of life in the future world using minor characters, streams from pop-culture and television commercials and snippets from real and fictional books and newspaper articles. Brunner's vision of the future revolves mainly around the theme of over-population and the resulting social, political and environmental disorder that follows. "Eugenics" laws forbid procreation by citizens labelled as possessing sub-standard genes. The reality of living in close-quarters with large groups of other people results in acts of socially-undermining sabotage and "muckers", a phenomena in which one undergoes a psychotic episode and attempts to kill or main those around them. Throughout the novel, Brunner creates a picture of a busy and out-of-control world, raising issues such as the right the bear children, media monopoly and the control of social opinion, recreational drug use, social disorder, rioting and general hysteria.

Two of the central characters, Donald Hogan and Norman House share a New York apartment but don't have much else in common. Norman is an African American junior executive at General Technics, a huge multi-national corporation with ownership in everything from chemicals, nano-technology, the aerospace industry and "Shalmaneser", a mega-brain classed supercomputer which is used for everything from advising the future direction of the company to forecasting social and pop-culture trends. Donald works as a Dilettanti, a sort of academic in cross-disciplinary studies, but secretly signed up to be a spy for the US government ten years previously and is waiting anxiously, hoping that he is never called up for active duty. When the US ambassador to the tiny, under-developed African nation of Beninia requests help from General Technics to invest finances into the country on the eve of it's long-standing president's impending retirement, Norman is given the reigns on the project to bring the nation up to twenty-first century standards. Shalmaneser is used to plan a program of development that will improve the economic output and standard of living in Beninia, with financial gains for the company in access to a key shipping port and by providing labour for a mid-atlantic mining project owned by the company. The rest of the story thread deals with themes of racial politics, the growing divide between rich and poor and neo-colonialism of the third world by mega-corporations, albeit in a slightly less cynical flavour than one might expect from reading the surrounding stories. When Norman travels to Beninia, he is enchanted by the people who live there and is fascinated by the reasons why the small nation had not already been gobbled up by colonialism and the greed of it's bigger, war-mongering neighbours; later developments at the end of the novel reveal that the people living there contain a gene mutation that causes a pheromonal signal of pacification. Meanwhile, Donald's worst nightmare comes true and he is called up for service in the south-east asian country of Yatakang, a military dictatorship at odds with the US. Yatakang has claimed that it's top medical researcher, Dr. Sugaiguntung has just discovered a breakthrough in genetics that allows for parents with un-desirable genes to have perfectly healthy babies (in fact ones even superior to the regular stock). The claim has caused political pressure in the US because citizens have demanded that their government also make such treatments available to them. Donald is "eptified" (a sort of mental programming) in the art of assassination and sent into Yatakang with the secret cover of a reporter to either prove Dr. Sugaiguntung's claims false or return fruitful research data into the hands of the US. By an act of fate, Donald saves Dr. Sugaiguntung from a mucker, and indebted to Donald, the doctor confides that the claims are false, that the current dictatorship of Yatakang forced him to make the claims for political reasons, and agrees to defect to the US. When the doctor has second thoughts at the final stages of a lengthy and bloody attempt to steal him from the country, Donald's eptified killer instincts kick in and he accidentally kills the doctor. Donald is left a broken man, never able to return to normal society and never able to repair the psychological damage wrought by his eptification.

Brunner creates some pretty decent extrapolations from the 1960s to the present day; he was very close in his population estimate and managed to capture well the themes of growing divide between rich and poor, mega-corporations vs. the third world, media monopoly/control of social opinion; other predictions such as eugenics legislation and the hysteria and social disorder following over-population are not quite as accurate but still convincingly portrayed. Political meddling in the third world by superpowers is a definite theme of the novel, perhaps reflecting the war-by-proxy politics of Vietnam and the cold war, within which timeframe the book was written. The use of the "context", "the happening world" and "tracking with close-ups" chapters is really nice, and to me is what makes the book. Brunner paints a vivid tapestry of life in his dystopian future through the snippets of minor character's lives, snatches from newspaper articles and screenplays for television ads and pop-music videos. The continuity chapters started off well and built up the interest and tension but both Norman and Donald's story threads had reasonably disappointing endings. I didn't really see the point in threading together the stories at the end and the "revelation" of the genetic explanations for the "Shinka effect" seemed a bit far fetched; I didn't really get the point. Also, there were characters like Bronwyn which seemed to be important to the story, like she might be a counter-agent, but then were just abandoned. The book is is bit difficult to follow and work through for the first couple of non-continuity chapters, but you get the hang of it after a while. Brunner's prose gets a bit challenging to follow at times, particular in the opening sentences of some chapters .. he has this habit of placing the context of the sentence right at the end so sometimes you find yourself having to re-read the sentence a few times to make sense of it.

Overall, an interesting and ambitious work that is worth reading because it's intelligent and different, and gives a nice insight into the new-wave science fiction genre.

"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein

In 2075, Luna, the Earth's moon, is a colony of Earth, administered by the "Lunar Authority", which maintains a tight grip on the Lunar population through a totalitarian and bureaucratic control over the Luna economy and chiefly the almost one-way trade which sees grain and other food produced on Luna shipped to the hungry masses on Earth. Luna is an ex-convict colony/prison and most of Luna's population are former inmates or the descendants thereof; anyone living on Luna for more than a few weeks typically undergoes permanent physical changes due to the reduced gravity that prevent them from returning to Earth to live. The central protagonist, Manuel "Mannie" O'Kelly is a ex-ice miner turned computer technician (after loosing his arm in a mining accident) who, while fixing the Authority's central computer, the HOLMES IV (who Mannie nick-names "Mike"), discovers that the machine has become "self-aware". Mike, seeking "not-stupids" to talk to, befriends Mannie. While attending a public meeting setup by the Lunar "Sons of Revolution" on Mike's request, Authority troops raid the dissident-gathering and in the ensuing fire-fight, Mannie escapes with hot-headed revolutionist Wyoming "Wyoh" Knott. While in hiding, the pair meet up with another revolutionist, Professor Bernardo de la Paz, an old friend and tutor to Mannie. Mannie introduces the others to Mike and the group ask Mike to simulate and predict the expected future of the Lunar population under the current rigid rule of the Lunar Authority, to which Mike predicts that at the current rate of exports to Earth, Luna's system of agriculture will most likely collapse in the next seven years due to the impoverishment of soil nutrients. The group begin to plot their own revolution, using Mike as their ally and secret weapon.

Using an anonymous cell-system, the group recruits thousands of Loonies to the cause, and eventually when the rape and murder of a woman colonist sparks riots, the revolutionaries make their move, take control of Luna and declare independence from Earth. Mannie and the Prof travel to Earth looking to drum-up support for the independence, but receive only apathy to their cause and are labelled criminals by the majority of Earth's governments, who seek to continue the exploitative shipment of food from the moon. The pair return to Luna and are democratically elected into a Free Luna government (amongst others) and continue preparations for the inevitable conflict with Earth. The authorities on Earth eventually send a "peace-keeping" force designed to subdue the independence movement, but the soldiers and ships are defeated by angry hoards of Loonies (and with Mike's help in tracking and targeting incoming ships). The Loonies begin a campaign of "throwing rocks" at Earth by using mike to pilot empty food barges into specified targets on Earth while demanding recognition of Luna's independence and for Earth to cease their attack upon the colonists. The effort is eventually successful; Earth capitulates and recognises Luna as a free state. Suffering from exhaustion, the Prof dies of a heart attack after giving a victory speech to his fellow comrades and Mike ceases to communicate with Mannie and Wyoh as a self-aware entity, due to damages sustained during the attack from Earth. Years pass and Mannie reflects on the bright new future of the free colony.

"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" is a nice read, filled with its' libertarian themes and parallels to the American revolution. The plot is engaging and Heinlein does a good job of creating a fascinating world of the future on the Earth's moon with it's lawlessness and strange customs including ad-hoc courts, polyandry and line marriages. The novel contains a interesting bunch of characters from no-nonsense Mannie and his Loonie pidgin-English and beige-prose, which gives a nice touch to the storytelling, to Mike and his computed practical jokes. Mike is interesting as a supercomputer that gains self-awareness but then assists the protagonists rather than turning against its human creators (a la HAL9000). The prof somewhat plays the same role as Jubal Harshaw in "Stranger". As with Heinlein's other works, the book is packed with long rants and characters pitching their political and philosophical ideologies to the reader. Still, it's definitely not as annoying or boring as in "Stranger in a Strange Land" because the story and characters are interesting in themselves and the action keeps on flowing through the book.

Perhaps the most negative aspect of the book is its portrayal of women (a trait once again shared with Heinlein's other works). It's all a bit to hard to shallow; it's always the girls asking the stupid questions, getting a nice pinch or pat on the bum. The scene in which Wyoh refers to her child, which died shortly after birth due to mutation, as a "monster" is also a bit unpalatable; it's pretty hard to believe that a mother would refer to her dead child in such an insensitive way. Also its strange that Wyoh starts off as a strong part of the politics for free luna but then just fades off into the background as the real revolution begins.

Besides the few negative qualities, this was a really enjoyable book to read. Even though I found myself objecting to the "tanstaafl" philosophies presented by the characters, I still found the presentation intelligently thought out and entertaining. Recommended reading and easy to see how it won a Hugo.

"Hyperion" by Dan Simmons

On the eve of an interstellar war between the "Hegemony", a collection of human-colonised worlds connected by "farcaster" wormholes, and the "Ousters", a collection of nomadic humans who live amongst the comets and debris of interplanetary space, seven pilgrims prepare to embark on a journey to the legendary "Time Tombs" of the backwater planet of Hyperion. The Time Tombs are a mysterious system of ancient buildings and artefacts that are surrounded by an "anti-entropic" field in which the Tombs move backwards in time from some unknown point in the future. The Tombs are guarded by the "Shrike", a three meter tall, razor armor-clad being who for unknown reasons is known to make people "disappear" in the night, leaving only blood-stained walls. The pilgrims have been chosen for the journey by the "Church of Final Atonement", a cult that worships the Shrike and Time Tombs, with each pilgrim's past being interwoven in ways unbeknownst to them through their experience with Hyperion. At the eve of their journey, the pilgrims agree to tell their tales to one another in hope of understanding why they have been chosen for the pilgrimage, how their actions may prevent the developing interstellar conflict and indeed how they may remain living when in the presence of the Shrike.

Inspired by the structure (and to some degree the characters) of Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", each of the pilgrams; a Priest, a Soldier, a Poet, a Scholar, a Detective, a previous Consul to Hyperion and a starship's captain (who never gets around to telling his story), tell their stories through a series of their own and other characters journals and personal accounts. In the Priest's tale, Father Lenar Hoyt reads from the tattered remains of the journal of Father Paul Dure, who after being exiled from the Hegemony for falsifying an archeological discovery, travels to Hyperion to search for a lost tribe, the "Bikura", human descendants of a centuries-old crashed interstellar colony-ship. Father Dure discovers the Bikura, who have regressed into a sub-human state after being infected by a cruciform-like parasite which makes them immortal by regenerating their bodies when they die. After Father Dure is unwittingly infected by the cruciform himself, he seeks deliverance from the immortality it imparts on him by crucifying himself within the native flame-forests of Hyperion, where his body is continually electrocuted and burnt over seven years before he is found by Father Hoyt and freed of his parasite and allowed to die.

In the Soldier's Tale, Colonel Fedmahn Kassad tells of his love affair with a phantom girl who appears to him while wired into a military tactical simulation environment, meant for training soldiers of the Hegemony during his days at military academy. After graduating, Colonel Fassad rises through the ranks to become the Hegemony commander at the battle of Bressia, a colony world invaded by the Ousters. When Fassad is wounded and flown out of the battle zone, his hospital ship is attacked by a Ouster raiding party while passing through the Hyperion system. Fassad is the sole survivor of the attack and being pursued by Ouster commandos, manages to crash land on the planet where he encounters the phantom girl from the simulation in physical form. Identifying herself as "Moneta", the phantom gives Kassad the power to distort and slow-down time which he uses to fight-off the pursuing Ousters before it is revealed that Moneta is some sort of manifestation of the Shrike which has used Kassad to lure the Ousters and set the seeds for the interstellar war about to be fought over Hyperion.

In the Poet's tale, Martin Silenus tells of his early days on old Earth several hundred years ago before the planet was destroyed by a human-generated black hole in the "Big Mistake" of '38. Just before the destruction of the planet, Silenus is sent on a 167 year space trip in suspended animation, from which he awakes suffering from a stroke and must re-learn to speak (all but nine words). While recovering and undergoing hard labour in an effort to pay off his debts, he writes a book of poetry celebrating life during the last days of Earth, and becomes one of the richest men in the galaxy. Years later, jaded by his writing career, Silenus works as a poet on Hyperion under the artistic patronage of Sad King Billy, who sets up a new colony on the planet. Silenus rediscovers his muse and sets about writing his cantos about the same time as the planet's new inhabitants start being mysteriously killed-off one-by-one by the Shrike. Silenus eventually leaves Hyperion and spends several more decades and centuries occasionally in suspended animation up until the current date of the pilgrimage.

In the Scholar's tale, professor Sol Weintraub tells of his daughter Rachael, who at the age of 24 is struck down by a strange illness while working on an archeological research project at the Time Tombs. Rachael begins to age backwards (think "Benjamin Button") and wakes up each morning remembering only events that have happened before her current backwards-moving age. As Rachael gradually loses the memory of a lover, her studies, school friends and eventually how to walk and talk, her parents desperately seek a cure while Sol is plagued by strange dreams of a voice that commands that he bring his daughter Rachael to Hyperion as a sacrifice. After his wife is killed in a tragic accident, Sol becomes obsessed with the biblical story of the Binding of Isaac and it's significance to his own circumstances. As Rachael's "birth-date" approaches, Sol is called to the pilgrimage.

In the Detective's tale, private investigator Brawne Lamia tells of a client who approaches her to investigate their own murder. The client is a human-clone controlled by an artificial intelligence which resides in the "Web" and is an emulation of 18th century poet John Keats. Through investigating the murder, Lamia is swept up in a political plot by AIs that seek to predict and model the future but have difficulty in integrating the Time Tombs into their models; one faction of AIs seeks to integrate Hyperion and the Time Tombs into the Hegemony and another faction seeks to distance the anomaly.

In the Consul's tale, the Consul tells of the love affair of his grandparents Siri, a young girl of the backwater world Maui-Covenant and Merin, a crew-member of the starship Los Angeles which is involved in the development of a farcaster portal that would link Maui-Covenant to the rest of the Hegemony. The two meet when Siri is fifteen and Merin nineteen, but Merin leaves the system every few months to return to Hegemony space, a round trip that takes a few months ship-time but eleven years on Maui-Covenant time because of the relativistic speeds at which the Los Angeles travels at. Eventually a 25 year old Merin returns to Maui-Covenant to find Siri has passed away from old age; Merin leads a rebellion against the construction of the farcaster after he is convinced by Siri over the years that the link to the Hegemony will only bring destruction to the pristine marine ecosystem of the planet. The Consul reveals that he has secretly held the hatred for the Hegemony and played an instrumental role in the developing conflict with the Ousters, acting as a double agent, hoping that interstellar war would free the Shrike from Hyperion and the Time Tombs, allowing it to wreak havoc on the Hegemony as a form of vengeance for the Hegemony's actions on his home planet. Throughout the story-telling, the pilgrims slowly journey towards the Time Tombs and the novel ends with the six remaining pilgrims descending into the valley of the tomb.

"Hyperion" reads a bit like a series of novellas placed end-to-end; each story is somewhat self-contained, but the reader is gradually introduced to more and more elements of the universe of the novel as the stories go on. Action occurs in-between the stories, but doesn't really have a big affect on the overall narrative; in the end we don't find out what happens when the pilgrims arrive at the Time Tombs, it's their journeys to arrive at this moment which are important (so there is a sequel apparently that wraps this up, but the word seems to be it's not that good). What I really liked about the novel was the individual tales. Like "The Canterbury Tales", to some degree the novel has each pilgrim telling their tale in a style and voice that matches their character; this was probably done best with the Priest's and the Poet's tales but could have been perhaps a bit stronger with the other characters. Probably the best tale (in my opinion) was the Priest's; it was the most interesting and kept me wanting to read every new page by holding on to the interest. The use of the voice of the storyteller in the Poet's tale made for good entertainment value as did the action of the Soldier's tale. The Scholar's tale was genuinely heartfelt and although the Detective's tale started well (with a twist on the classic hard-boiled private eye story) it felt a bit convoluted towards the end. I also liked the Consul's tale with it's the use of the time-dilation coming between two lovers (perhaps with inspiration from Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War"). The novel uses a lot of jargon that is kind of thrown at the reader early on and kind of expects you to fill in the details from a familiarity with the genre or contemporary ideas in popular science. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I can see how non-sf readers might find this frustrating. After reading "Hyperion" I can see a similarity in the universe to elements of Peter F. Hamilton's books; I wonder if this is Simmon's influence on Hamilton or just some sort of cross-fertilisation as the two authors wrote vaguely in the same time period (funnily enough, Peter F. Hamilton wrote the introduction to the edition of the book I have too).

I did really enjoy reading this one; some of the tales were really well constructed and overall the backstory and universe to the novel was very entertaining to unfold if nothing else. That said, somehow I can't help thinking that the book could have been so much greater; there were a few moments and parts of the story that just seemed to go off-track a bit. I never really understood why it was needed to open up all the business about the AI factions so late in the book. The Siri/Merin component of the Consul's tale was great but it did end up feeling like it had been chopped out and placed into the rest of the Consul's story, which felt a bit clumsy (I'm being a bit harsh here; I mean in comparison to the excellent quality of some of the other character's tales).

Overall, although I wouldn't rate this as a definitive classic, its definitely worth reading; very entertaining, clever and unique.

"The War of the Worlds" by H.G. Wells

Told from a first-person narrative perspective many years after the events of the novel, "The War of the Worlds" is the story of an attempted invasion of Earth at the end of the nineteenth century by intelligent and merciless creatures from Mars. The narrator is a middle-class author living in the outer suburbs of London with his wife when one night a flash of green light is seen in the sky and a strange glowing cylinder crashes into the Horsell common, a few miles from the narrator's home. In the weeks before the landing, astronomers of Earth had witnessed several giant plumes of smoke on the Martian surface that the narrator explains as being the discharge from a giant cannon used to launch the invaders across interplanetary space. A crowd gathers around the cylinder, which eventually opens and from it emerges several Martians. The martians have large heads with huge eyes and an array of tentacles and are seen to have trouble moving around under the influence of the Earth's larger gravity. When a party of humans approaches the cylinder bearing a white flag of peace, the Martians incinerate them and the surrounding bystanders using a "heat-ray"; the narrator bears witness to the scene but escapes by chance of being out of the path of the Martian's fire. Fearing that the area might turn into a warzone, the narrator borrows a horse and cart and evacuates his wife to family in Leatherhead before returning to his home. The British army is called in to control the area, and newspapers spread a story of the Martians that convinces the population of their own safety; the Martians are thought to be foolish and so burdened by their physical limitations that they will quickly be overwhelmed. When several more cylinders land and the Martians build huge mechanical "fighting-machines", fast-moving tripods equipped with heat-rays and chemical weapons, the public's illusion of safety is shattered and the Martians quickly advance across the countryside towards London, bringing panic and near-total destruction to everything in their path. The narrator's account includes several chapters that follow his brother's flight from London amidst the chaos to the east coast, where he escapes across the English channel to Ostend.

The narrator seeks refuge in an empty house accompanied by a Curate of a local village he passes through, hiding from the black chemical smoke used by the Martians for exterminating hidden pockets of Earthlings. While they hide out, a cylinder crash lands in the vicinity burying half the house under rubble and leaving the pair trapped with the only exit being directly over the pit left by the cylinder which is used as a sort of encampment by the Martians. After days of hiding and watching the Martians go about their daily business, the Curate slowly looses touch with reality and begins the ramble and shout, believing the Martians to be a punishment to mankind sent by god. The narrator is forced to knock the Curate unconscious fearing his behaviour will betray their presence to the Martians in the pit and when a Martian sentry examines the ruins of the house, the Curate is dragged away and the narrator escapes by hiding within a pantry. After more than a week of waiting the narrator is eventually forced to leave his place of hiding to search for food and water; luckily the Martians have abandoned the pit and the narrator escapes. The narrator wanders aimlessly across the deserted outer suburbs of London which are full of burnt houses, dead bodies and a curious red weed which has overgrown across the landscape. He eventually encounters a surviving artilleryman of a wiped-out army unit that he had previously encountered at his house during the second day of the invasion. The artilleryman dreams of rebuilding human civilisation underground and tries to convince the narrator to be a part of his new world, but sensing a lack of the artilleryman's intent for actually putting in the work to carry out the plan, the narrator leaves and heads for central London. In London, the narrator discovers the dead bodies and broken machines of the Martians; after weeks on Earth their bodies have succumbed to bacteria and other microorganisms that they had evolved no defence against on their home planet. Weeks later human civilisation is still in the process of rebuilding and the narrator returns to his home where he is reunited with his wife, who like him was miraculously able to survive during the invasion.

In the novel Wells has made an insightful challenge to the assumed superiority of Europeans and the colonialism of the British empire at the time the novel was written. The story turns the notion of imperialistic conquer on it's head from the perspective of Victorian-era English readers; the english (and the human race at large) are now the "Native Tasmanians" and "Dodos" according to Wells's own analogy. The book is an early example of "invasion literature" and has had a huge influence on science fiction in the century since, setting the ground work for themes of alien invasion and technological warfare that have been widely used in contemporary science fiction. Separate from it's science fiction merits, it's a nice horror story (genuinely frightening in parts) and a study of human reactions to fear and disaster. I'd take a guess that this is probably a big part of it's long-lasting appeal. I really liked the use of characters the narrator meets (i.e. the Curate and the Artilleryman) as focal points for themes in the novel. Through his interactions with the Curate, Wells contrasts what was probably his own realist perspective against the irrationality of the Curate, the shattering of his assumed privilege of mankind over beasts and his hope for divine deliverance. The Artilleryman is an interesting figure; through him we are shown a potential future, a logical extension of the eventual path of a conquered human race, but then the Artilleryman is discredited as idealistic, full of talk but no action, an orthogonal contrast to the Curate.

It's interesting to see a lot of talk being bandied about on other internet reviews of the book (and associated Spielberg film from 2005) that the ending of the novel is a "deus ex machina"; I totally disagree. The Martians needed to be defeated by the end of the novel, otherwise the narrator would not be alive to give his account and an ending in which human ingenuity was responsible in anyway for the Martian's downfall would totally go against the central idea of challenging our own superiority. I really think the ending was great; the irony that their defeat was brought about by lifeforms that are to "man with a microscope" as we are to the Martians and the subtle warning that the hubris of the colonialism of humans could meet with a similar disaster.

Overall, a must-read, both because of it's classic status and that it's still a really enjoyable story, the appeal of which I'd say has not faded.

"Air" by Geoff Ryman

Chung Mae lives in the small, isolated village of Kizuldah within the fictional central-Asian country of Karzistan and is the village's fashion expert. She gives advice on makeup to the other women in the village and designs "best dresses" for the high school graduation ceremony. Her husband Joe owns a small block of land and a rice terrace, which feeds them and her husband's brother and father who live in the loft of their small house. Kizuldah is the last village on Earth to connect to the internet when Wing and his wife Kwan, some of the more "wealthy" village residents, buy an internet "TV". The year is 2020. A number of days later, the government runs it's first test of the new communications technology "Air", meant to connect every mind on the planet without the need for any hardware or consent. When the test begins, Mae and her neighbour Granny Tung are left dazed and confused by the strange sensations Air imposes on them, and Granny Tung is killed when she falls onto a brazen of boiling water in Mae's kitchen. While trying to help Mrs. Tung, Mae accidentally engages a "software bug" in Air that copies Mrs. Tung's dying conscience into her head and is left with a permanent connection to Air that she can employ even after the test is over. Besides the trauma caused to Mae's village and a small minority of others around the world who were not properly prepared, the test is considered a success, and Air is scheduled to be switched on permanently in one year's time. Mae realises that her village is not ready for Air, and starts out on a quest of knowledge to prepare herself and her village.

Mrs. Tung's presence influences Mae's behaviour; after a fight over the village strongman attempting to bamboozle her husband Joe of their land, Mae starts an affair with her neighbour Mr. Ken, Mrs. Tung's grandson, and falls pregnant. Mae is compelled to learn how the use the internet TV of her friend Kwan and connect her fashion business to the wider world. She teaches the people of the village how to use the TV, bringing the objections of the more conservative village members. She receives a grant to create a fashion business which exports local handcrafts to first-world buyers using the internet. Mae's connection to Air allows her to see the past, present and future, from which she sees a vision of a flood that will wipe away the village. The combination of her exposed affair, her continual warnings to the other villagers and the regular violent outbursts that occur when Mrs. Tung's presence comes to the surface results in Mae being ostracised, feared and concerned for by her neighbours and friends. Mae travels to the city with the support of her friends Sunni, Kwan and Sezen and is invited to visit "Green Valley Systems" by company head Mr. Tunch, who is interested in the curious circumstances surrounding Mae's connecting to Air and Granny Tung. Mae learns about the different proposed "formats" for Air, the larger struggle for format dominance, and how corporations like Mr. Tunch's want control of the format for their own power. Mae is held at Green Valley Systems against her will but eventually escapes with the aid of an experimental talking dog.

Back in Kizuldah, Mae patches up her relationships with her family. Eventually Mae's vision comes true and she leads the effort to rescue the people of the village when the flood comes in the early hours of Chinese new year's day. Gaining the respect and attention of her peers, when Air does finally come, her village is ready. She gives birth to her child into a brave new world and optimistically reflects on what the future holds.

Air is a fantastic story about the traditional ways of life confronted by the changing world and forced to adapt to survive. Ryman celebrates and criticises both the old way and new way of life such that the overall balance is somewhat neutral, a mix; the future is coming whether the residents of Kizuldah like it or not. The story is always told through the eyes of Chung Mae; we learnt about Air given Chung Mae's background and perspective, not our own, emphasising the strangeness of the modern world, it's bizarre terminology and it's distance from the life of Kizuldah. Mae is an interesting and multi-facetted protagonist; she is smart, caring and driven while also being erratic, vulnerable. It was a good choice to have a character like Mrs. Tung take up residence in Mae's mind; her memories and personality traits that are imprinted on Mae give the reader a rich perspective on the traditional way of life that celebrates its love and loss. Generally speaking the novel is full of very interesting characters, particularly the female ones, and vivid detail of the life of the village, it's poverty, festivals, social politics, working life. Although I thought Mae was a really well painted central character, I did have a bit of trouble at times trying to understand her motivations and what/why she was doing at some points. It also seemed odd that given the sacred nature of the history of the Eloi people to Kwan, she didn't object to Mae's business ideas for selling Eloi handcrafts. Was there some aspect of cultural appropriation worth exploring here, or perhaps that would be going too off-track from the central themes of the novel? Also, as raised in countless other reviews of the book, the abdominal pregnancy thing was a little bit weird; I was just never sure of what was the point of this; the symbolism was a bit lost on me (I mean I think a normal and more believable pregnancy would have got the job done all the same).

Overall, a really great book with lots of depth; definitely worth reading.

"2001: A Space Odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke

Spanning across three million years, "2001" tells the story of humankind's meeting with an advanced extra-terrestrial race that visits us early in our evolution and leaves a buried artefact on the moon allowing our contemporary space-faring society (or at least the society of the near future) to make contact. The book is composed of three subsequent story-lines. In the first story-line an advanced extra-terrestrial race visits early hominoids three million years ago on the plains of Africa and imbues the struggling and nearly-extinct "man-apes" with the subconscious knowledge needed for our successful development as a species. The visitors provide a local tribe leader "Moon-Watcher" with the inspiration to use stone tools to hunt for food, fend off predators and conquer an opposing tribe. In the second story-line, three million years later in the year 1999, Dr. Heywood Floyd, chairman of the National Council of Astronautics, is heading to Clavius base on Earth's moon to visit a recently uncovered and highly secret artefact. The artefact is a large black monolith with side-lengths at a perfect ratio of 1:4:9, buried under geologically ancient moondust and therefore believed to be very old and of alien origin. The artefact has only recently been dug-up and coincidental to Dr. Floyd's arrival, the monolith is exposed to sunlight for the first time in three millions years, triggering a powerful radio signal to be broadcast out of the artefact to the deep reaches of the solar system.

In the third (and largest story-line) a manned space mission is sent to Saturn with the secret objective of tracking the calculated destination of the radio signal. The ship is co-piloted by David Bowman and Frank Poole, with three other crew members in suspended animation, due to be awakened when the ship arrives in the Saturnian system. During the trip, the ship's computer and artificial intelligence, HAL-9000, malfunctions through the reaction to a philosophical dilemma faced with concealing the secret about the mission from the ship's two awakened crew (who for security reasons were only to be told about the true purpose of the mission when the ship arrived at Saturn). HAL falsely reports that a component on the external region of the ship's hull is faulty, requiring Frank to perform an EVA to replace the part. When it is discovered that the component is working correctly, HAL fears that his crew mates will disconnect him. HAL informs Dave and Frank that the replaced unit has also malfunctioned and when Frank goes on a second EVA to replace the unit again HAL pilots an EVA pod into him at high speed, killing him and making the incident look like an accident. When Dave tries to re-animate the other crew members, HAL attempts to murder him by opening the pod bay doors and de-pressurising the ship's hull. Dave manages to survive by reaching an emergency vacuum-proof shelter in time, and proceeds to de-activate HAL, continuing with the mission with manual control of the ship and alone, after the sleeping crew members were killed during de-pressurisation.

When the ship arrives at Saturn, Dave pilots an EVA pod down to the surface of the moon of Japetus after discovering a second and much larger monolith. The monolith is a star gate that transports Dave across far reaches of the universe to what appears to be an automated outpost left behind by the same extra-terrestrial intelligence that visited early humans three million years ago. Dave is transformed into an being of pure energy, a star-child, and travels back to Earth deciding to eliminate the Earth's entire arsenal of orbiting nuclear weapons. The act appears to be a somewhat optimistic gesture that the threat of humanity destroying itself through nuclear war has been diffused.

Overall I really enjoyed this one. I thought it was much better than, for example, Childhood's End which tried to be a lot more epic, but ended up being a little bit dull for the most part. I just realised that all three of Clarke's books I've got on my list essentially deal with the same theme (humanity's encounter with extra-terrestrial intelligence). Although I did find this theme, and the bit of the book that dealt with it directly, very interesting, the bit that really drew me in was the scenes surrounding HAL's malfunction. I guess I just have a soft spot for stories of dangerous malfunctioning robots. I think I just liked the dramatic suspense, the feeling of claustrophobia and isolation from Earth and help, through the time delay of radio transmissions, although I think the suspense was drawn out better in the slightly different version of events in the movie (i.e. I really like the bit where David Bowman has to jump into the open airlock without a helmet, a nice man vs. machine moment).

Clarke draws such a vivid picture of the technological state of the future world (i.e. space planes, the operation of the ship etc.). I really appreciate the technical imagination that has gone in here, even though I guess it's a bit dated from the apollo moon mission-era. I guess Clarke was a true "futurist". I've never really got with the notion of "hard sci-fi" but I guess this is probably what it is; Clarke's books definitely have a certain charm in this area. It's also interesting how, like Childhood's End, the story presents an almost metaphysical experience by the central character in the presence of the utterly incomprehensible extra-terrestrial intelligence and explores the ultimate evolutionary end of humanity. I'm wondering if this theme runs through all other books of Clarke's, or if it's just coincidental.

"Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley

In the year 632 A.F. (After Ford, the worshipped car manufacturer Henry Ford), everyone is happy now. Nations abolished, the unified world state is run as a well-oiled machine. Bred within a factory line of bottles and conditioned from a young age to love their job and accept their place in the social hierarchy, the world's population ensures economic stability through consistent production and encouraged consumption, and in return enjoys a steady stream of free-love, endless, mind-numbing entertainment, sport and "soma", a state-sponsored drug, which brings complete bliss, free from any nasty side effects. Art, science and history have all been abolished due to their tendency to promote social unrest; conformity is the order of the day. But Bernard Marx is unhappy. He is different from his peers; he abstains from promiscuous sex and social sport, doesn't taken soma and thinks of himself as an individual (all highly questionable and anti-social behaviours). Bernard is an "alpha plus", within the highest rank of society (i.e. within his bottle he was allowed to develop "normally", unlike the "gammas", "deltas" and "epsilons" who are all artificial stunted through a combination of chemical additions that ensure their physical and mental capacity won't make them want for anything more then their menial jobs in society). Through Bernard's job as a psychiatrist, Bernard undermines his own conditioning through his understanding of the principles of "sleep-teaching" that all children receive from a young age. Bernard confides in his only friend, Helmholtz Watson, a like minded alpha plus who working as a lecturer and writer for the college of emotional engineering, desires to write about something with meaning and feeling. Bernard pines over Lenina Crowne, a beta-level fellow employee of the central London hatchery and conditioning centre. Unlike Bernard, Lenina fits in perfectly with the rest of society, unselfishly sharing her love amongst several of her male colleagues and is considered charming and "pneumatic" by her peers.

Bernard eventually builds up the courage to invite Lenina on a week long trip to a "reservation" in New Mexico, where, sealed off from the rest of the world by electric fences, people still live the "old life", marrying, conceiving and birthing children, living in family units with knowledge of religion, passion, disease, old age and death. While there, they come across Linda and her eighteen year old son John. Linda originally came from the outside world, but becoming accidentally pregnant and then lost inside the reservation has been living there ever since. John's father happens to be the director of Bernard and Lenina's hatchery, and Bernard brings John and Linda back with him to London in a scheme to disgrace his boss, thus circumventing his transfer to Iceland, which had previously been threatened by the director on the grounds of Bernard's anti-social behaviour. John has been raised on pain and suffering, honour and virtue, god and self-sacrifice, (and the complete works of William Shakespeare) and at once finds the "brave new world" both intriguing and repulsive. John has fallen in love with Lenina and sets about to court her in the traditional manner. But Lenina likes John too and thus throws herself at him in the socially-accepted and characteristic manner of society, horrifying John. He slaps her, denounces her as a strumpet and reciting shakespearean chastity-whore speeches, flees from her presence. Meanwhile John's mother Linda has become sick from her excessive consumption of soma (coupled with her poor state of health). John rushes to be at her bed as she passes away at the park lane hospital for the dying, but when he exhibits signs of grief in front of a group of children brought into the hospital to be conditioned with positive experiences associated to death, John is forced to leave. In a fit of rage he makes a public spectacle by interrupting a group of workers from receiving their daily ration of soma and is arrested along with Bernard and Helmholtz who have rushed to his aid. Bernard and Helmholtz are labelled as socially-undesirables and exiled to an island of like-minded individuals, away from the rest of society. But John is not permitted to go with them or return to the reservation, on the grounds that he is an "nice experiment", and is promptly returned to mainstream society, where he seeks out the life of a hermit. John is hounded and tormented by curious sight-seers after he is witnessed undergoing self-flagellation and after being forced into a ritualistic orgy of sex and soma, hangs himself in despair.

"Brave New World" is considered one of the two great dystopian science fiction novels of the twentieth century, alongside Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell. It's an impressive novel for it's thoughtful (and somewhat accurate) prophesy of the future state of the world, particularly considering it was written in 1931. The book contains a fantastic blend of characters, particularly John and, the most unlikeable, Bernard. I guess I would have appreciated a bit more depth to Lenina's character; I just didn't really understand why she liked Bernard and John so much. There was such a rich use of visuals and smells in the writing, from the scent taps and sprays to the the rich, vulgar smells of the reservation (interestingly Huxley was partially blind; I wonder what effect this had on his perception of smell in his writing). John's passionate application of Shakespeare to his dialogue was fun but I wonder if one was raised as he was, could they really appreciate the meaning of everything he read without reading of knowing anything but Shakespeare (of course neglecting his mother's conditioning centre manual) ... he must have had some pretty good study guides to accompany the texts!

As for criticism of the novel, its a bit too suggestive that any future society that uses free-love, conditioning or developmental manipulation (i.e. eugenics) will be inherently horrible and insane. The way in which these elements of the brave new world are presented to the reader is deliberately negative: consider the nasty, violent conditioning techniques used to train babies to hate nature that leaves the reader with the impression that in fact they could result in long-lasting, sub-conscious psychological trauma (undermining the logic of the technique in the first place). Consider the use of Soma: not really such a perfect drug, it just leaves it's consumers in a happy stupor, a short-term solution to their problems (?? provides a interesting criticism <insert link> of the novel in this regard). Although, of course treating the book as a work of fiction (rather than prophesy) Huxley does a good job of creating horror from the insanity of the world state; particularly in Linda's death scene with the use of the surreal army of twins and their attitudes towards death, which adds a nice dramatic touch.

Its interesting to think that Huxley didn't take the analogy of the factory line further to consider that mechanical and robotic automation could have such a big effect on the lives of those in the the brave new world. The presence of mechanical automation kind of removes that requirement for a system of sub-class humans (i.e. gammas, deltas and epsilons), taking the edge off the requirements to make this sort of society feasible (consider Le Guin's technological anarchy in "The Dispossessed").

Overall, a really fantastic read, it's easy to see why this is considered a classic, being careful not to consider it too "prophetic".

"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick

Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter with the San Francisco police department whose job it is to track-down and "retire" fugitive androids amidst a post-world war terminus/three, radiation-ridden and largely de-populated Earth. The radiation left over from last world war has killed off the vast majority of the Earth's animal population and destroyed the biosphere, forcing large parts of the Earth's population to emigrate to colonies on the moon and Mars. Those who are left behind, or have chosen to stay face the constant risk of physical and mental degradation from the radiation. Androids were taken with the colonists, but the occasional android turns on it's masters, fleeing to Earth which is where Rick comes in. Rick is called in to follow up on a case of eight recently reported fugitive "andys", all new advanced nexus-6 models, two of which his predecessor Dave Holden retired before being caught off guard and lasered by the third. Before setting off after the andys, Rick is sent to Seattle to visit the Rosen corporation, manufacturer of the nexus-6, to test whether the department's standard test for detecting androids, the Voigt-Komp test, is still effective. Androids are developed using biological components that make them physically identical to real humans, except by means of a detailed laboratory analysis of bone marrow. The Voigt-Komp test measures empathic response to a series of scenarios read aloud by the examiner; androids are not thought to be capable of real empathy and so usually fail the test. Empathy is an important distinction for real humans, who participate regularly in a shared empathic experience using an "empathy box", all part of a mystical religion "Mercerism", in which followers are pelted with rocks while ascend a simulated hill with a vision of the religion's founder Wilber Mercer. Ownership and the sacred/social prestige status of animals is also an important part of Mercerism; to own a real animal is a statement of one's humanity and those who can't afford one, purchase a fake, electronic version of their favourite pet.

In Seattle, Rick meets a company android, Rachael Rosen, originally posing as the daughter of Eldon Rosen, the company's founder, in an elaborate rouse intended to discredit the Voigt-Komp test by making Rick think that he had incorrectly classified a real human as an android. Rick sees through the attempt and the company later offers Rachael's assistance in tracking down the remaining six fugitive androids. After retiring the first android on his list (the one that lasered Dave Holden), Rick attempts to apprehend the second on the list, a Miss Luba Loft, posing as an opera singer and is caught off guard and arrested by a police officer called in by Luba after she denies being an android and accuses Rick of being a stalker. The officer denies any knowledge of Rick or his department and takes him off to a seemingly duplicate police station on the other side of town. There Rick meets another bounty hunter Resch and eventually uncovers (with the help of Resch) that the entire police station is an android run operation (where Rick manages to knock off the third android on his list, posing as Resch's superior and leaving Resch in doubt as to whether in fact he is an android too with falsely implanted memories of being a real human). After returning to retire Luba, with the help of Resch, it turns out he is a real human after all, and Rick is forced to question the moral and philosophical position of his job as a bounty hunter.

Developing feelings of empathy towards androids, Rick engages in a sexual encounter with Rachael Rosen and resolves to quit his profession after finishing off his final three targets. The remaining androids are holed up deep in an abandoned apartment block, solely inhabited by J.R. Isidore, a "special" who has succumbed to the radioactive dust, and has a reduced mental capacity. Rick tracks down and retires the remaining androids and suffering somewhat from his philosophical and existentialist dilemma, drives off into the uninhabited wastelands, where he undergoes a mystical experience as Wilber Mercer, climbing a weed-infested hill-top.

In "electric sheep", Phillip K. Dick confronts the reader with the question: what does it mean to be human? We are provided with a self-paradoxical example of Rick, the empathic-bounty hunter; in order to retire androids he must suppress his empathy towards them, becoming android-like himself. If empathy is a defining characteristic of humanity, then we are forced to question the authenticity of empathy: it remains ambiguous if the new nexus-6 model can actually pass the Voigt-Komp test, Mercerism is exposed as a fake and consider the Penfold Mood Organ, where humans can so easily re-program their emotional behaviour, irrespective of the state of the world around them. Like in his other novels, Dick also asks the question what is real? I found the section of the book where Rick attempts to arrest Luba really great in this regard. When he is arrested his identity comes into question: is he an android with falsely implanted memories? Then we are lead to believe that Resch is certainly an android: the background adds up and he exhibits the same android-like lack of empathy that allows him to be so good at his profession; but then suddenly it turns out he is definitely human. I really like the way Dick shakes the foundations of what the reader believes is real one minute and then not the next ... or is it? Theres so much that I also didn't quite understand the underlying significance of (I feel like there is a lot of complex themes at play): the significance of the apparitions of Wilber Mercer, Rick's mystical experience at the end of the novel, finding the toad. I feel like I'll need to come back to this one again.

There is so much to love about this book; the cult of animal ownership and Rick's constant reference to the Sidney's catalogue of animal prices, the Penfold mood organ (I love the opening chapter, so entertaining), the obnoxious Buster Friendly. So far, I've really enjoyed the two other Phillip K. Dick novels I've read, he think he is such a great writer. A really cleverly constructed story. Definitely recommended.

"The Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham

Bill Mason wakes up in hospital on the day he is due to have the bandages removed that he has worn over his eyes for the last seven days. But the nurse doesn't respond to his calls and the hospital ward is silent. Eventually Bill makes the decision to remove the bandages himself; luckily his vision has returned after his accident seven days ago, but he discovers that just about everyone else in the world has gone blind. It all began the previous night when the world was witness to a spectacular, never seen before display of lights, thought to be a vibrant meteor shower; anyone who went outside to watch the display is now blind. Bill walks around central London trying to make sense of the situation when he meets Josella Playton, who escaped blindness after sleeping-off a party two nights ago. The pair meet up with a group of sighted individuals that have holed-up in the University building and are planning to gather supplies and head out into the countryside before things turn too nasty in the cities. The night before they are due to leave Bill and Josella commit to a sort of marriage to one another in their new community but are separated when they are kidnapped, along with others in the group by Coker, a sighted man who has been trying to round up assistance for a large number of blind followers, ever hopeful that what ever disaster has befallen London and England has spared some other country in the world (Coker speculates the United States) and that they only need to keep as many people alive as long as possible before help inevitably arrives. After days of being chained to and forced to support his gang of blind followers, members of the group start to fall victim to an unknown disease (thought to be similar to typhoid, but not exactly the same). After almost all of the group perish, Bill escapes and finding an abandoned truck loaded with supplies, sets off into the countryside to find the university group and hopefully Josella.

Whats all this got to do with "Triffids" you ask? Well, Triffids are a strange kind of plant that was discovered by the world about twenty years before the current events. Triffids grow to about two and a half meters tall, can lift themselves up and walk (albeit slowly) and possess a stinging tendril which they can lash out at their prey to a distance over four meters and can kill a full sized human in a single blow. Bill Mason works with Triffids for a living and is all too familiar with their dangerous behaviour (his original eye injury was attributed to a Triffid sting). With most of the world's population blind, Bill predicts Triffids will become a big problem and his prediction is correct; the Triffids run amok in the cities and countryside alike, making an easy meal out of the blind wandering the streets.

Eventually Bill finds Josella at a country house she told him about during the night at the university building and for the next few years they setup a life amongst the house's other residents, having a child. During a visit to the coast one year, Bill speculates that the meteor shower was probably a cold-war era orbiting weapons system that malfunctioned and that the disease that killed off so many in the days following the blindness was probably also attributed to a satellite weapon. During the trip home, a helicopter arrives at the country house bringing news of a colony that has been setup on the Isle of Wight by some of the original university group and Bill, Josella and the rest of the household and invited to move there. Deciding to move after the next summer, the group narrowly avoid being recruited into another new world order led by a sighted man Bill associates with indiscriminate killing during the days following the meteor shower in London, and escape to the Isle of Wight to live out the rest of their days.

"The Day of the Triffids" is a fantastic read, a genuinely creepy and convincing horror story built out of a such a strange sounding premise (killer plants take over the planet after everyone goes blind from a meteor shower). The author takes this creative scenario and by using an engaging set of characters and plot, analyses the ethics in a survival situation and the changed moral values of the post-apocalyptic world. The novel has been defined as a "cosy catastrophe" where the few sighted characters retreat into the countryside for a relatively comfortable existence while the world collapses around them, and I found this same feeling transferred to the reader, making it quite a cosy read.

I'm looking forward to reading more Wyndham; "Triffids" was a really enjoyable, an easy read, an sf classic. Definitely recommended.

"Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline

Ready Player One is set in the year 2045; the world has become an ugly place with widespread war, famine and general poverty. The world's oil supply has ended and the climate is wrecked. Like most people in the world, the protagonist of the story, Wade Watts spends hours on end plugged into the "OASIS", a virtual, massively-multiplayer simulation world where your avatar can live and play on hundreds of custom-built worlds while forgetting about the problems of the real world. Five years previously, the eccentric billionaire creator of OASIS, James Haliday, passed away leaving his entire fortune and controlling stake in Gregarious Simulation Systems (GSS), the company responsible for maintaining the OASIS, to any user who could find his secret "easter egg" within the game's environment. To find the egg, users must find a series of keys, each unlocking a series of riddles and challenges revolving around the music, movies, videogames and Haliday's obsession with the 1980's, the decade in which he grew up. Wade is a "gunter" (slang for egg-hunter) who has dedicated most of his life to learning every obscure pop-culture reference, mastering every videogame and learning every line of dialogue in hundreds of movies from Haliday's childhood. By chance, Wade decodes the first riddle of the competition and is the first user to find the copper key, one of three keys required to find Haliday's easter egg. Wade is an instant online celebrity and is closely followed by other top gunters, Atr3mis, Aech, Shoto and Daito who also find the key. Seeking to win the prize for themselves, the mega-corporation Innovative Online Industries (IOI), a competitor to GSS, recruits thousands of users to find the egg first (avatars referred to as "sixers"), legally-signing over the egg to the company if found in exchange for a salary. Wade finds himself playing a dangerous game in both the virtual and real world after IOI agents hack the details of his home address and bomb his aunt's shanty-like home in the "stacks", hoping to kill him off as a competitor (Wade is safely tucked away in his secret hideout at the time). Teaming up with the other high-level gunters, Wade progressively unlocks each of the keys in a series of challenges that see Wade battle it out against an un-dead king in the video game Joust, recite the dialogue to "WarGames" and "Monte Python and the Holy Grail" and play a perfect game of Pacman (amongst others). After a giant showdown against an army of sixers attempting to block off the final key, Wade gains possession of the egg and wins the competition.

Ready Player One was a really fun read. I was a young child in the eighties so I really enjoyed the nostalgia. I liked the way in which each of the challenges and puzzles unfolded. I liked the interplay between life in the OASIS and life in the real world. I liked the cyberpunk aspects; the sinister corporation playing dirty only to be outsmarted at each turn by the underdog protagonist. I think the bit I really enjoyed the most was in the descriptions of Wade's life in the "stacks" (ad-hoc apartment blocks constructed by dumping caravans and trailer-homes on top of one another) and the contrast to his online escape in the OASIS from his hideout.

Overall I wouldn't say this was a great book, mainly because I don't think it will appeal to everyone. Personally I found all the eighties videogame, TV and movie nostalgia really entertaining. However I did feel at times like it was nostaliga for nostalgia's sake with big info-dumps about pop-culture obscurity that didn't really move the plot along or have a particular significance to the story. That said, the story does a good job of employing the excitement of the "hunt" as something that probably has more universal appeal and made this book a very easy and enjoyable read. I wouldn't rate it in the top of my list, but a very enjoyable read none the less.

"Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea" by Jules Verne

Told from the perspective of Professor M. Pierre Aronnax, the novel begins with an account of a huge "sea monster" which has been recently sighted at several locations around the globe and has left the scientific world bewildered as to it's origin or exact nature. Believing the monster to be giant cetacean (i.e. whale, dolphin) and wishing to rid the world of this nuisance, Professor Aronnax embarks on the Abraham Lincoln, with his trusty servant Conseil, on a mission to destroy the monster. Onboard the Abraham Lincoln, the pair meet Ned Land, a Canadian harpooner, keen to test his hunting skills. During an encounter with the monster, Aronnax, Conseil and Ned fall overboard; the `monster' in fact turns out to be a giant and fantastical submarine, the `Nautilus', constructed and commanded by Captain Nemo, a dark and mysterious figure who has rejected the terrestrial world. After rescuing the three men and taking them aboard the Nautilus, Captain Nemo informs the three that they are prisoners and can never leave the vessel, in order to ensure the secret identity of his submarine and crew, however are free to roam onboard and will be given quarters and food during the Nautilus's ongoing journey. The novel follows the Nautilus's voyage of twenty thousand leagues through the world's oceans, discovering shipwrecked treasures, visiting the lost city of Atlantis, the south pole and battles with giant whales and octopi. After Captain Nemo destroys a hostile vessel, linked to his dark and troubled past within a unspecified oppressive nation, he spirals into an increasing bout of depression. When the Nautilus ventures into the `maelstrom', a giant whirlpool off the Norwegian coast, the three men use the opportunity to escape the Nautilus and return to civilisation after months of adventure.

This was a really enjoyable read; Verne obviously had a keen imagination and his depictions of the Nautilus's exploits and fantastic underwater world in which the story takes place is vivid and exciting. Through his work, Verne predicted inventions such as the submarine and underwater diving-suit before their time. The novel is like a travel-journal; Aronnax provides us with rich descriptions of the underwater life he encounters. Underlying the journey, Verne builds the tension in the story as we gradually learn more about Nemo's dark past and through Ned Land's growing resentment over his imprisonment and plans for escape (while he's not trying to harpoon and eat every single animal he encounters). With so many different species described during Aronnax's journal, I wish someone would make an annotated/illustrated, online version of the book, where for each species described, you can click on the word and it automatically brings up a picture (i.e. straight from a google/wikipedia search?).

A classic (both in and out of the sf genre) that everyone with a sense of adventure or a love of the ocean should read.

"The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin

Genly Ai, an envoy of the league of worlds known as the Ekumen is sent to the planet Gethen (otherwise known as Winter due to it's intense glacial-coverage and generally cold, snowy climate) on a peaceful mission to persuade Gethen to become a member of the league. The Gethenians have a strange sexual physiology; for each 26-day lunar cycle they spend 24 days in "Somer", an androgynous state followed by 2 days in "Kemmer", in which they transform into either a male or female, depending on hormones and their interactions with an interested sexual partner. There is no gender differences on Gethen; the resulting society knows nothing of sexual exploitation or war (although there is still murder and small-scale family and political feuds). As an outsider, Genly struggles to relate to Gethenians. Their ambiguous sexuality leads Genly to find them untrustworthy. The strange art of "shifgrethor", an elaborate system of social prestige used within the nation of Karhide (in which Genly Ai has been based for the last two years, seeking an audience with the king), stifles nearly every conversation with the locals. After Ai gains an audience, and is not well received, his main advocate in Karhide, Estraven, a political leader, is charged as a traitor by the king and exiled, under pain of death, into the neighbouring authoritarian police-state of Orgoreyn. Finding apathy for his mission in Karhide, Genly Ai travels to Orgoreyn hoping for better luck, but is embroiled in political feuds and eventually sold out and shipped off to a "Voluntary Farm" on the far side of Orgoreyn, a kind of Siberian concentration camp. Learning of his fate, Estraven sets off to rescue Genly, and posing as a prison guard helps Genly escape into the cold, north-western wilderness of Orgoreyn. In an effort to return Genly to the safety of Karhide, without being detected in Orgoreyn, the two men set off on an desperate 81 day journey across the northern polar glacier. During the journey the two reach an understanding of each other and develop a strong friendship and a kind of love. After reaching Karhide, Estraven is betrayed by an old friend and tragically shot while attempting to flee back into Orgoreyn. Following Estraven's death, the king admits another audience with Genly Ai after which further diplomats of the Ekumen are invited to land on Gethen. At the end of the novel, Genly visits Estraven's family and son in a rural provence of Karhide seeking solace.

In an interview with Le Guin, she stated that the initial concept for the novel was a society with no war and that this eventually lead to the idea of an androgynous society. As in "The Dispossessed", Le Guin builds a complex world for the setting of the book complete with histories, politics, religion and a blend of ancient texts, hearth-stories, legends and myths that are told in-between the story chapters. For me, this type of world-building was great and made the story so engaging and immersive, and supported the development of the more complex themes in the novel such as fidelity/betrayal, the nature of cross-cultural understanding/friendship, hardship and the journey of inner discovery.

I was really blown away by this one; I enjoyed "The Dispossessed" immensely, and really hoped this book would be as good, and I wasn't disappointed. I'm considering adding more of Le Guin's novels to the list (such as "The Word for World is Forest" and "The Lathe of Heaven").

"The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester

Gully Foyle, Mechanic's Mate 3rd Class aboard the spacecraft "Nomad", an uneducated man with no ambitions, has been floating inside a coffin-sized piece of wreckage of his vessel for the last one hundred and seventy days. When the spacecraft "Vorga" passes by to inspect the wreckage and upon hearing his distress call ignores him and continues on it's way, something inside Foyle snaps. Swearing a murderous revenge on the Vorga and her crew, he finds the motivation to repair and launch the scraps of the Nomad, where he is eventually rescued by a strange cult living a secluded life amongst a scrapyard of derelict space vessels in the asteroid belt. The members of the cult tattoo his face and adopt him into their clan. Driven by his quest for revenge, Foyle hijacks a working vessel and returns to Earth, killing several clan members in the launch.

Gully Foyle lives in a twenty-fourth century future where people can "jaunte", a form of self-teleportation using one's mind over distances of up to one thousand kilometers. Other methods of transport have become redundant (excepting inter-planetary spaceships which travel across distance too far for jaunting). The rich and powerful lock themselves up in jaunte-proof mazes inside their mansions and a state of war exists between the inner and outer planets and moons of the solar system. The Vorga is owned by the Presteign Industrial Clan, a powerful corporation with political ambitions; when Foyle attempts to destroy the ship, he is captured and interrogated about his knowledge of "PyrE", a mysterious and powerful substance that could turn the tide of the war, and was being transported by the spacecraft Nomad when the vessel was attacked and destroyed. He is thrown into a jaunte-proof underground prison when he meets fellow-inmate Jisbella McQueen, with whom he escapes and is taught to channel his rage into more productive plans for revenge. Returning to the wreckage of the Nomad, the pair recover a quantity of PyrE and a large fortune in platinum, but soldiers hired under the Presteign clan interrupt the salvage operation and Jisbella is left behind as Foyle flies off into the sunset. Using his discovered fortune, Foyle assumes the identity of a rich socialite, undergoes surgery to receive implants that provide him with commando-like killing abilities and ultra-fast movement and starts to hunt down the crew of the Vorga. His killing spree eventually leads him to Olivia Presteign, daughter of the head of the Presteign-clan, who was responsible for the decision to abandon him and the Nomad; he is smitten by her and her sadistic hatred for the world, and struggles with reconciling these feelings with the desire for revenge. Upon further research by the Presteign group, acting independently of Olivia, it is discovered that during his time in the wreckage of the Nomad, Foyle had sub-consciously jaunted over six hundred thousand kilometers, a feat never before achieved. Eventually Foyle is wrapped up in the race to recover PyrE (when turns out to be a highly powerful, planet-destroying explosive) where he is knocked unconscious during an explosion, trigged by a telepath hired by the Presteign group. Foyle suffers synesthesia, bringing on more powerful latent jaunting capabilities that allow him to jaunte through inter-stellar space and time. Discovering other worlds that humankind could colonise, he returns to Earth, shares his discovered secrets of inter-stellar jaunting and invites the rest of humanity to abandon the war and join him amongst the stars.

"The Stars My Destination" seems to be fairly highly regarded in reviews of the last twenty years or so, and is mentioned frequently in "top-ten sf novel" lists. It is exciting and frenetically-paced, with a fantastically loveable (and hate-able) anti-hero Gully Foyle, and must have been quite exceptional for it's time (I find it so hard to believe this was written in the 1950s!). It introduced so many concepts that would be taken up as main-stream by the "cyber-punk" genre that really only kicked-in in the 1980s (the combination of the amoral-hero, evil mega-corporations, ultra-violence, nihilistic attitude to human life, radical change/breakdown in social order (in this case after the discovery of jaunting) etc.). On reflection there is also a bit in common here with Samuel Delany's "Babel-17", although I think with a slightly less optimistic tone. Overall, I enjoyed the book, but there is a lot going on, and it sometimes felt that too many threads were opened up all at the one time and not all of them resolved. I feel like it was an enjoyable read, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't make my top ten .. perhaps there's something here that speaks to other readers that I don't quite get. In any case, recommended for sf fans or those exploring the genre.

"Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein

Michael Valentine Smith was born aboard the spacecraft "Envoy", during the first manned-mission to Mars. After landing, all radio contact was lost between the Envoy and Earth and when the remains of the spacecraft are discovered twenty five years later during the second mission to Mars, Michael Smith is also found alive and well, raised by Martians for the majority of his life. Smith returns to Earth and is an instant celebrity, and owner of a great fortune, owing to his parent's heritage and his claim to being the first human alive on Mars. Due to his Martian upbringing, Smith has a fair degree of difficulty in understanding human behaviour; he has never seen a women, has trouble understanding clothing, money and religion, amongst other things that don't exist in the Martian culture. To "protect" him from Earth-culture he is isolated in hospital and kept under guard. Nurse Gillian Boardman, sneaking into his private room, inadvertently becomes his first "water brother" by sharing a glass of water with him, a sacred act in Martian culture. Eventually she helps him escape, with the aid of reporter Ben Caxton to the mansion of Jubal Harshaw, famous author, lawyer and doctor who seeing Mike initially as naive, assumes the role of protecting him legally from the outside world. Mike exhibits telekinetic powers and the ability make things instantly and permanently disappear if he considers a "wrongness" in them, which he does when government agents try to arrest him and his friends. Eventually he is secured legal rights against those who try to exploit his situation, and leaves the care of Jubal to explore the world. Studying religion through his interactions with members of the fictional "Fosterite Church of the New Revelation", Mike starts his own "Church of all Worlds", inspired by Martian culture and elements of Human religion, where members learn the Martian language and associated psychic and telekinetic abilities. His new church creates a scandal with it's liberal ideas on monogamy and the afterlife and is eventually labelled as blasphemous, and burnt down by an angry mob of Fosterites and Mike is arrested by the police. After saving his followers and assuring his fortune will be bequested to the continuance of the church, Mike preaches to an angry mob and is beaten and killed.

Overall the concept of the book was an interesting one; we see Human society from the eyes of an outsider (i.e. Mike) providing a mechanism by which to analyse and criticise institutions such as marriage and the Church. The problem is that as the book was written in the 1950's the treatment of the issues feels very dated. One of the big ideas explored in the book is that of free-love vs. monogamy. Although, through Mike's philosophy, Heinlein advocates freedom of sexual expression, overall the text is still very sexist with too many fixed ideas about gender roles in love/sex. The book is fairly constrained in the notion of "free-love"; the definition here really only covers heterosexual relationships and where the woman's role is passive. Perhaps going any further might not have been accepted by the audience of the time. As in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" (and as I hear in other Heinlein novels) there's a fair bit "preaching" in the conversations between his characters (i.e. characters go on rants about their firm political or philosophical ideas, quite possibly thinly veiled versions of the author's own beliefs).

All that said, the book is still an interesting read; Heinlein's writing is well-paced and easy to read and he keeps the action moving along well. Although the "preaching" can get a bit much, at least it's mostly written in an engaging fashion, so even though I found myself cringing sometimes, I wasn't really too bored with it. Based on what I found in the second-hand bookstore, I picked-up a 1991 re-published version of the book based on Heinlein's original manuscript (about 650 pages) which differed from the version published in 1961 that had been cut down significantly (for excessive length and to remove more controversial elements). I kind of wish I had read the original print because they were right about it being too long.