A speculative mind

  You can’t get much more futuristic dystopian than the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. It practically invented the subgenre of dystopian science fiction.   It was written in the 1940’s when the year 1984 seemed like a long way off.  I was thinking about it the other day and realizing that the year 1984 was 37 years ago. A good chunk of the population of the world wasn’t even born yet when this “futuristic” novel was set. How are we supposed to feel about a book or a film that is set in a future that has already passed? Nineteen Eighty-Four is not alone in this quandary.  Back to the Future II (the one that is really set in the future) is set in 2015. The novel Make Room, Make Room by Harry Harrison which became the movie Soylent Green , was set in 1999. The film Blade Runner is set in 2019. Ray Bradbury’s the Martian Chronicles (in the original printing) was set over a range of years from 1999 to 2026. At least Aldous Huxley set his Brave New W...

  If you are looking for some good fantasy that is a bit different from the normal fare, I recommend reading books by people named Rebecca. A few weeks ago, I reviewed The Poppy War by R. F. (Rebecca) Kuang. A fantasy that seems not-so-loosely based on Chinese culture and history. The very next book I read was Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse which is a fantasy that seems modeled on pre-Columbian Native American and maybe some Polynesian culture. Now I love The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire etc., but it is refreshing to find fantasy that doesn’t look like medieval England. In Black Sun we follow several seemingly unconnected people.  There is a blind boy, Serapio, who has an appointment with destiny. We see his mother’s severe preparations for her child. We see his brutal training. When the metal is forged to a sufficient hardness, passage is booked for him on Xiala’s boat where the point of his existence will be tested at the city of Tova. We follow the ...

  “Music hath charms to sooth a savage breast.” The often-misquoted line by the poet William Congreve, nonetheless rings true. Who among us hasn’t had a piece of music that gave them pause? One such moment for me was when I first heard the song “The House of the Rising Sun" by The Animals.  I don’t know how old I was, but I couldn’t have been more than seven. Music was not as prevalent back in the mid-1960’s, this was pre YouTube, pre Internet, pre phone apps, pre many things. About the only music you heard was on the radio. And if you heard a song you liked, you had to either go out and buy the record (not likely for a seven-year-old) or wait endlessly through many lesser songs on the one or two radio stations that might play it. Prior to this I had been listening mostly to children’s music, because, well, I was a kid. I had heard other music too. I was not immune from the radio. But when I heard “The House of the Rising Sun,” something clicked in me. Suddenly I “got” Rock ...

  Now that some time has passed since I saw the ending, I can reflect on the HBO series Game of Thrones . And, just so you know, there will be spoilers here (for the show; not the books, since we don’t know for sure how the books will end). There were some great moments in the final season. The battle with the ice king was spectacular. But I do have to say that the final season left me disappointed. It was unsatisfying for the relationship I felt with a number of the characters, including Tyrion and Jon Snow. But what bothered me the most was the Endings for Cersei and Danny. Cersei had been a formidable opponent throughout the series. She was evil and cunning, and as much as we all hated her, you had to admit, she knew how to get things done. I have to say that Cersei in the show is maybe more cunning than she is in the books. But even in the books she always has a plan or scheme, and a drive to get what she wants. It doesn’t always work because she is not as smart as she think...

  The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang is the first book in a fantasy trilogy set in a country that looks a lot like China. In fact, early twentieth century Chinese history is the inspiration for this story. Most sword and sorcerer fantasies that I am familiar with, seem to be set in land that looks an awful lot like historical Europe (Middle-Earth, Westeros, etc.), so why not have one in a land that looks like historical China? The story takes place in a large mainland country, Nikan, which often finds itself at war with the powerful island nation Mugen. We meet our protagonist, Rin, at the age of sixteen as she is taking a test to get into Nikan’s military academy (the only way she can go to college as it is free but very difficult to get into). The first third of this book feels almost like an adult Harry Potter with martial arts in place of magic, as Rin makes her way through the rigors of the academy. But then war comes and the story takes a very dark turn. Kuang shows war in all it...

  I just finished The Last Emperox by John Scalzi. It was a satisfying ending to his Interdependency trilogy. The first book in the series is The Collapsing Empire , followed by The Consuming Fire , and it finishes with The Last Emperox . The premise of the series is that humankind has found the answer to faster-than-light travel among the stars in something called “the flow”. The flow consists of natural trails or streams through spacetime that allow a ship to take a shortcut through the universe. Humanity is spread out in an empire called the Interdependency. It is called that because none of the worlds or habitats have enough resources to sustain their inhabitants. But they all have resources that the other world or habitats need. So, they are dependent upon each other. The problem is that these flow streams are breaking down and scientists have discovered that it is just a matter of time before they all dissolve, leaving people stranded on worlds that cannot support them. The...

  I am not the biggest fan of Dr. Who in the world, but I am still a fan. Dr. Who is a time-travelling alien who seems to have a soft spot for Earth, and often takes human companions with him on his adventures through time and space. My wife and I binge-watched Dr. Who reruns last weekend. BBC America had a Dr. Who marathon going on for about six days in a row. I tried to do other things. But then my wife was watching and I kept finding myself being sucked in like all those Daleks being sucked into the alternate universe. I think when they started the series in the early 1960’s. The BBC executives thought it was just going to be a kid’s show and budgeted accordingly. The lack of funding showed in the effects and design of sets, props, and aliens. This is why the menacing aliens known as the Daleks, basically look like an upside-down garbage can with a plunger sticking out of it. Over the past 40+ years the Daleks haven’t changed much. Their look has been upgraded, but it is...