New High-Rise Trailer

So back in 2014 I did a book review of a novel called High-Rise by J.G. Ballard - sort of a class struggle/lord of the flies mashup set in the UK and maybe a little more speculative than science fiction. Either way, I was a pretty big fan, and now look here - not only are they making a movie, but the first trailer has got me pretty interested...

Man, reading all that 70s-era SF has got me excited for all sorts of stuff!

Book Review: The Centauri Device

Picking up M. John Harrison’s 1974 Science Fiction novel The Centauri Device, I was pretty excited, as the book was only 185 pages long and seemed to have an interesting premise. It follows a space-trucker who is being drafted by various sides of a massive war to help them control an ultimate weapon, only he has absolutely no interest in them. Think of it like Star Wars: A New Hope (1977), but without Luke and with Han Solo as the main character – not the Han who decides to pitch in at the end (sorry for the mild 37-year-old spoiler), but the Han from the beginning, who could care less about anything other than staying ahead of his debts and finding work.

The novel followed themes I would read again in Transmetropolitan, a world where everything seems messed up beyond all recognition (and yes I know there is a useful acronym for this but both my Mother and my teen daughter read my blog, so deal with it).

Of the various factions attempting to get the help of the main character, two come from armies which are nothing like their contemporary counterparts, and the world is such a bizarre collection of sensory overload that it was often easy to get confused as to what was going on.

Like Alfred Bester's The Stars, My Destination, the book plays with a lot of standard SF story points, but unlike that book, I think only those really interested in reading the more arcane works of classic SF would find it a worthwhile read.

Book Review: Motherlines by Suzy McKee Charnas

One of my favourite things about working my way through lists of classic science fiction (or any genre fiction, really) is discovering new authors and stories that lead me beyond the list.

The latest example of this for me was Suzy McKee Charnas' 1974 book, A Walk to the End of the World, which focused on a post-apocalyptic world where society had split along gender lines, which men representing a higher caste in a settlement called the Holdfast, and women becoming a means of labour and necessary breeding.

The second novel in the series, Motherlines (1978), focuses on the main female character from the first book and her life outside of the Holdfast.  Like a lot of sequels, I really enjoyed how quickly the novel moves into actual story and character development, as the world-building aspects of the series were largely dealt with in the first novel.  Where Motherlines works best is with the two societies of women the main character comes across and how they both strive to exist free of men in a world where science has largely fallen away and children are a highly treasured commodity. 

The book was great, I found myself swept along the story of the main characters life and will definitely be picking up the third book in the series The Furies, next month.

Things I’ve Noticed: My introduction to ‘70s SF was pretty awesome

So for the last few years I’ve been working my way slowly but surely (and sometimes a little surly) through the book Science Fiction: The 100 best novels an English Language Selection, 1949 and 1984, edited by David Pringle. Right now I’ve read the first 63 in order (from George Orwell’s 1984 (1949) to Poul Anderson’s Tau Zero (1970) and 68 overall. With Tau Zero I have finally left the ‘60s and moved into the Science Fiction of the 1970s, which for me was the decade of some of the more influential SF films (Star Wars) books (Rendezvous with Rama) and television (Mork and Mindy) of my childhood.

Ahead of me I have 24 ‘70s-era science fiction novels, (excluding The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, which I read a few years back) and event though I’m not familiar with all of the titles or authors, this list has treated me pretty well so far, giving me a number of books that happily sit in both my top ten list of Science Fiction novels and even one that sits in my top ten favourite books list (Flowers for Algernon).

My first entry into ‘70s science fiction from the list was Poul Anderson’s Tau Zero, which focuses on a colonizing ship (crew of 50) travelling to a nearby star system in an attempt to see if the planet will work as an Earth Colony. The book is great, I don’t want to wreck it with any spoilers – simply find this book and read it.

I know that for my BFF Mike the ‘70s were not his favourite era in SF (he was reading his way through the Hugo Awards), but I’m hopeful that I’m going to be hitting a lot of good stuff.

BTW, if anyone out there has read any of my next five books: Downward to the Erath (Robert Silverberg), The Year of the Quiet Sun (Wilson Tucker), 334 (Thomas M. Disch), The Fifth Head of Ceberus (Gene Wolfe), The Dancers at the End of Time (Michael Moorcock) or Crash (J.G. Ballard) be sure to let me know what you thought.