TO READ FOR NEXT WEEK:
Or All the Seas with Oysters by Avram Davidson
&
The Road Not Taken by Harry Turtledove
DISCUSSION OF LAST WEEK'S READING:
The Star by Arthur C. Clarke
&
World of Tomorrow [Netflix] by Don Hertzfeldt
Prompts for discussion
1. In The Star, what do you make of the idea of divine evidence in nature on an intergalactic scale? Is this scenario something you would see as compelling? What is/would be compelling?
2. In World of Tomorrow there seems to be a struggle between preserving life indefinitely and missing/capturing the essence of life. What developments/examples in the story illustrate this.
Clarke is sci-fi royalty and has won this award three times in the short story category. We also did a Rendezvous with Rama sci-fi club that I encourage people to check out.
Don Hertzfeldt has some fame from a rather notorious animated short (see pictured). His more recent works have a decidedly different tone. Check out "It's Such a Beautiful Day" (also on Netflix) which is a longer film that also tackles themes of the value of life and the inevitability of death in ways that are far more profound than you would ever expect from a stick figure animation.
And remember to vote for your favorites for next week
Ongoing list of material to vote on (Still looking for digital format "Golem XIV")
Frankenstein
Golem xiv by Stanislaw Lem
Forbidden Planet
2001
The Day the Earth Stood Still
I, Robot (book)
Watchbird by Robert Sheckley
Equoid by Charles Stross
Blood Music by Greg Bear
Shoutouts:
kleinbl00 JakobVirgil mhr OftenBen plewemt elizabeth blackbootz flagamuffin Meriadoc minimum_wage Tiger_the_Lion _thoracic johnnyFive tehstone rthomas6 War Dala OftenBen bhrgunatha kantos francopoli anatomygeek Purple_Ruby
My beef with The Star has always been the superficiality of it - Clarke sucks at humans to begin with but he particularly sucks at grappling with a crisis of faith within a clergyman faced with the ultimate indifference of an uncaring God. It's the quintessential example of gimmick sci fi - "I've got a twist ending and the only way to present it is to put you through a crapton of boredom." I think it gets bandied about a lot because gimmick sci fi is the only sort of sci fi most people will tolerate; it doesn't explore new ideas, it doesn't act as a parable or metaphor for something else, and it requires the audience to stretch their intellects not one iota. World of Tomorrow is a reductio ad absurdum take on the futility of life and the death of innocence. I enjoyed it - it's funny - and the ending was poignant. The part where the kid got left in the snow, but then didn't, was perfect. It's also pretty much a Hawkwind song, here covered by Banco de Gaia because i like them better than Hawkwind.
I encourage you to check out it's such a beautiful day as well. It's an earlier work of his, not as concise, but very poignant and filled to the brim with dark wit that is executed excellently. Also on Netflix. I think you're spot on with Clarke and his characters here. I know it came up in the Rama discussion but it's pretty obvious here where Authur C. Shyamalan's interests and strengths lie. It's also occasionally fun to wonder what motivated the awarding of the Hugo each year. I promise some "what. the. fuck." Awardees down the road.
Kinda funny how little overlap there is between the Hugos, the Nebulas and The Year's Best Sci FI. A few of my friends have suggested that Michael Crichton would have done much better if he'd given his ideas to someone else to write, as he sucks at the actual "writing" of stuff, but the ideas are great. I've often felt that ACC is basically writing a travelogue for the Conde Nast Traveler of the future.
I'm not so steeped in biblical literacy, so the twist ending went over my head. On to the next!
I forgot I had already read The Star, but it pays off nonetheless. Expressing important ideas simply is a trait of good science fiction. When I was 12 I read a lot of Turtledove, which was a waste of time, but I'm really curious to see what I think of him now.