The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson

The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

Absolutely primo modern speculative fiction. After a few different books that I sort of enjoyed and sort of just felt meh about, this one knocked my socks off. Concepts, delicious. Story, engaging. Philosophical meandering, minimal. Characters, fleshy and companionable.

I guess that just makes sense. Universe-building and character development are the heart of a coming-of-age novel like this. And the concepts employed aren't necessarily unique to this novel. I tasted traces of David Wingrove's Chung Kuo series, a little Dickens, big gobs of William Gibson - you know what I'm saying. And, of course, refined threads from Stephenson's own Snow Crash (which I didn't enjoy half as much as Diamond Age). But all that is just seasoning in a mighty fine soup.

In a world where most of your basic needs are met - one way or the other - what drives a person to succeed? To make something of herself? To rise from a childhood of abuse, neglect, and a mother named Tequila (really? but then, not so different from Brandy) into positions of leadership and fulfillment? Is it hardship? education? a close connection to parental figures? Stephenson takes his time in exploring these questions, and the reader is richer for it.

There was just so much to enjoy here. So many images created. The mouse army, building human rafts. The neo-Victorians, steampunkian in their top hats and watch chains. The Drummers' undersea orgies. Skullguns, smart paper, bodies in the river, actors in a ship. It's not perfect and the tech may or may not age well, but the blend of Idea and Story is right up my alley. I'm loaning this one to a friend, as soon as I run into him, and will probably have to buy myself another copy in a few years when I get an urge to read it again.

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

We

Pretty much the grandfather of the classic, totalitarian dystopias. 1984, Brave New World, Kallocain - this novel helped spawn them all. Often, I'll find that I don't enjoy a book that's become this huge influence, preferring the distilled version found in later works. In this case, however, it turns out that the original charmed me in ways that the later novel (no matter how much I did enjoy them) simply couldn't.

Orwell's best work is very spare and stripped down, for example, but Zamyatin's writing in We is almost romantic. His main character, D-503, tell the whole story as a sort of love poem. At first, he is driven by love of state, love of belonging, love of work. As he progresses, he falls not only for mysterious and rebellious I-330, he also freely expresses his feelings for the voluptuous O-90 and their friend/her other lover R-13. His journal style matches this outpouring of emotion. Just riding in an air car comes out as:

Five minutes later, we were already in the areo. The blue majolica of the Maytime sky; the light sun in its own golden aero buzzing after us, neither falling behind nor overtaking us. And ahead of us - a cloud, white as a cataract, preposterous and puffed out like the cheeks of an ancient cupid, and somehow disturbing. Our front window is up. Wind, drying the lips. Involuntarily, you lick them all the time, and all the time you think of lips.

"And all the time you think of lips." I didn't find anything that simply beautiful in 1984. And that feeling remains until the end, even though the narrator's soul is lost, the people themselves may be rescued. It's no accident that this is shown by the flight of birds, formerly banned from the city. All of We, from the space craft to the love stories, is a longing toward flight.

Kallocain by Karin Boye

Kallocain

First of all, I want to thank Peter from Dystopiate for sending me a copy of this one. Coming home to a package from Sweden on my porch was very cool. Also, I don't like to read books online, but if you do, you can find the complete text right here. It's well worth reading in any format, honestly.

Kallocain pretty well sums up my biggest dystopian nightmare: not only are you being watched and listened to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from bed to bath to work and back again (yeah, no wonder the population is dropping with everyone knowing they're being watched and judged in the sack), but now the government can even access your secret thoughts!

It's amazing to me, sometimes (the rest of the time it's just depressing) how easy it is to convince so many people to assist in their own degradation or enslavement. Plenty of stick, a little carrot, a healthy dose of "it's for your own good," a double helping of "everyone does it, don't rock the boat" and you wind up with poor Leo Kall. Working his ass off, between mandatory service nights and pep rallies, to give the government new and exciting ways to control him and his loved ones.

Even in our society, if they (that nebulous they) could hear your hidden thoughts, of course none of us would be found innocent. As Leo's coworker and eventual breaking point says, "no one over 40 years old has a clean conscience." What do you think you'd confess? Weird sex fantasies, violent urges, racist leanings? Falling in love with the wrong person or people? Hating your parents? Kicking puppies, watching American Idol, voting for Bush? God save us.

final thought: This novel should be better known, right alongside Brave New World and 1984.

If you'd like a few words about Kallocain from a Swedish philosopher, check here.

Devil On My Back by Monica Hughes

Devil On My Back

(That particular wiki page does little justice to the book, by the way, but there aren't a lot of online options for plot summary on this one.)

This is one I read as a middle schooler. It's young adult all the way, and not as good as, say, A Wrinkle in Time. You've got all the classic elements of dystopian fiction - a slave class, a shadowy overlord, forced hive mind, withdrawal from nature, controlled reproduction. The story clips along just fine - a little adventuring, a touch of freedom, and hint of amnesia. But, in the end, not really a satisfying book.

The ending just felt like a cop out. "We know what's best for everyone, son. We'll drive the slaves until they have to escape or die, and through dream-programs, we'll slowly wean others from the infopak lifestyle." Meh. Throw open the gates, let the people roam free, quit with the pussy-footing.

I guess it just all felt too... easy. The guy at the top agreed with the protagonist, and was already working against the system he was supposed to be upholding (albeit very slowly). There was never any real danger for the escapees. The society was already on the track to major change/destruction of the dystopian system.

final thoughts: I liked it better when I was 11. No surprise, huh?

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

A Wrinkle in Time

Back when I was a wee nerdlet in the grade school gifted program, this was definitely a Series To Read. I think I read all four, but honestly, at this point that's a little hazy. I only really remember this one and A Swiftly Tilting Planet.

This past week, I lost an aunt and an uncle, in unrelated circumstances, which made for a pretty damn crappy time. I'm glad I was rereading Wrinkle, which is a hopeful little book, and not some Russian soul-killer.

L'Engle doesn't bother to specify one misery as the main villain driving the dystopian elements. Yes, IT ("the Happiest Sadist" - a great phrase) powers the conformity of Camazotz culture, but IT is only one face of that larger pall. Look at the names given as examples of those who have fought the good fight against this universal enemy: Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Bach, Einstein, Euclid. Discovery, love, peace, empathy and affection for your fellow beings. It's no wonder that so many of the hippie-raised kids I knew growing up were given this book early on in their reading.

And it's just a great story. You've got all the right elements for a kid's tale: missing parent, daring rescues, strange creatures, wide travels, new thoughts, misfits finding their places. Now I want to find a grade school student with a quick mind and hand over my copy.

The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells

The First Men in the Moon

First off, I have to say that one trick of Wells' I truly admire was that of having a narrator who is not the main scientist of the story. That allowed him to present an idea like cavorite, an antigravity metal, without having to dive too deeply into a practical explanation. The narrator just says something like, "Oh, and I don't know how it worked, but then, I'm just a businessman," and then get on with the more important stuff like fighting moon-based insect beings or traveling millions of years into the future.

(I hear this bugged the crap out of Jules Verne, who was quoted as saying, "I get my voyagers to the Moon with gun cotton - something you can buy in any store - and Mr Wells uses a totally mythical substance. Pah! Where is this Cavorite? Let him produce it!" Which is probably why I prefer Wells to Verne.)

You know, I'm glad we've been to the Moon and all, but we have lost a certain opportunity to simply guess and invent what might be happening up there on our nearest neighbor.

Anyway, things don't get good and dystopian until the last few chapters, when Wells managed to hide a creepy little statement on colonization and specialization in his adventure yarn. The image of the young Selenites cramped into bottles with just their arms protruding in order to be modified to perform their assigned life task squicked me out the same way stories about comprachicos do (no shock - it's basically the same idea, and I have to guess that Wells was at least partially inspired by Victor Hugo's take on it in "The Man Who Laughs", which was published in the 1860s).

final thoughts: Did Cavor deliberately tell the Grand Lunar about humans' taste for violence and war? And if he did, was it to save us from them or them from us?

Anthem, by Ayn Rand

Anthem

There's a reason I didn't read this one before now - it's a yawn. Blah blah blah, the individual above all, blah blah blah. In another time (either in my life, as in middle school, or in the world, as in when it came out) Anthem might have made a bigger impact on me. As it is, I'm old enough to be fairly sure that there's a world of ground to cover between nazi/commie state-owned marching in lockstep pure collectivism and I-as-God navel gazing ego worship.

I couldn't help but note that, in nearly the same thought, the main character goes from basically "I am alone myself, I will not be ruled, no one shall make laws for me" to "your name is Gaea, my beautiful woman, and you will bear my sons." Again, product of its times, but jarring as hell today.

final thought: Meh.