Well, I still believe there is a gun problem in the United States, yes.
Definitely. Just recently a police officer fatally shot a pregnant Black woman
in the parking lot of a grocery store in Ohio after she refused to exit her
car. And Ohio is not even a red state, right? It is also well known that the US
has substantially more mass shootings than other countries. This is one reason
why I do not want to travel to the USA at the moment - South Africa also does
not feel safe to me after various reports in the last months about missing
tourists.The other is the lack of good food. In Europe and Asia there is such a
variety of good restaurants and healthy food. In Germany and Great Britain not
so much, except in the larger cities, but in the Mediterranean countries like
Spain, Italy, Greece and Israel the food is awesome. In South Korea, Thailand,
Vietnam and Japan as well. -J.
-------- Original message --------From: Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com> Date:
9/3/23 8:59 PM (GMT+01:00) To: friam@redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Science
Fiction Books
Jochen -
I thought of you more than few times on my long walkabout through
Red/Purple-state 'murrica... mostly your concerns a year or two
ago about traveling to the US "because gun violence". I was in
the heart of "gun country" through this trip and saw a few
artifacts of that which would naturally be *very* disturbing
(methinks) to someone not already innured to it... but not nearly
as many as you might expect. On the other hand I just saw a news
item that Canada and many other first-world countries have in
place "travel warnings" for not the US proper, but many of the
more egregious "red states". I believe you may have already made
your 'murrican sojourn so the point may be moot... but I couldn't
help thinking "how would Jochen see this?" as I stumbled through a
landscape of bison, hay bales, corn fields, motorcycles, strip
malls, and gun shows.
I have read "Highway of Eternity" from Clifford D.
Simak this weekend, one of the books from the golden age of
science fiction which is comparable to "The city and the Stars"
from Arthur C. Clarke and "The end of eternity" from Isaac
Asimov. Both belong to my favorite books. Modern authors don't
write like this anymore. Their books are often gloomy and
depressive, and do not span millions of years. What is your
favorite science fiction book? Will the AI breakthrough in large
language models lead to more optimistic science fiction books
again?
Back on topic: I grew up on a lot of "Golden Age" works/authors
which includes Simak/Clarke/Asimov of course. I would claim that
this time was naturally one of "Utopianism" that came with the
rapid development of industry/technology/science. I think the
Dystopianism ramped up with PostModernism and Cyberpunk. I'm a
big fan of Cyberpunk (esp..
Gibson/Sterling/Stephenson/Cadigan/etc.) and *some*
post-Apocalyptic works... now almost exclusively "CliFi" (Climate
Fiction), but I get your yearning for "the good ole days". I'd
say Elon Musk grew up on "too much Utopian SF" as well and (unlike
me) hasn't outgrown it?
My *favorite* golden-age author is Jack
Williamson who I've mentioned here before and had the
distinction of being somewhat elder when he published his first
work at age 20 (1928) in Hugo Gernsback's first-of-kind Amazing
Stories (1926). I feel like he hit his stride after WWII where
he had been a (civilian, not military due to age) Weatherman in
the Pacific and reacted to a dawning self-awareness of the flip
side of techno-Utopianism (exemplified by Hiroshima/Nagasaki)...
His (re)entry into publication after a long hiatus (during/after
WWII) was With
Folded Hands, a reflective dystopian view of
techno-utopianism as well as work presaging Asimov's Robot series
as well as a plethora of concepts like
Borg/Cylon/Replicant/Terminators/Cybermen/Sentinels, etc... and
of course all of this was preceded by Lem's Trurl and
Klapaucius (wizard-robot constructors) and the Hebrew Golem (and
Frankenstein's Monster and... and and.) He wrote over 50 novels
ultimately in his 98 year long life as well as myriad short
stories, novellas and a 3 year run of a comic strip (early
50s)... He also penned a reflective autobiography late in life
(70s) but with nearly 20 years worth of career following that!
He taught writing at Eastern NM University well into his 90s as
well.
For the most
part I'm thankful to be beyond the flat-character
cardboard-cutout, misogynistic, stoicly independent/capable
(white-male) hero-worship classic SF tropes but I hear your
interest in more positive grand narratives that the Golden Age
also carried. For the seminal Epoch-spanning humanity I offer
Olaf Stapledon's "Last and First Men" (1930) and "Starmaker"
(1933). The former spans 2 billion years and 18 human
species...
Robert
Heinlein is the avowed Master of Human Chauvanistic
technoUtopian/Libertarian fantasies which even satisfies some of
us reformed/anti-Libertarians sometimes. Many of his more
minor novels are a fun romp in near-future techno-utopianism
(e.g. Moon is a Harsh Mistress) as well as epoch and dimensional
spanning works such as Time Enough for Love and Job
(respectively). Stranger in a Strange Land stood up
well next to Herbert's Dune in the 60s to satisfy
Hippies and non-Hippies alike.
Larry Niven's
Ringworld series are pretty
far-flung/futuristic/optimistic epochal. He does
post-Apocalyptic well too (e.g. FootFall, Mote in
God's Eye)
I did enjoy
Simak's work "back in the day" and his 1968 "So Bright the
Vision" gestured toward what ChatGPT is today.
A.E. Van Vogt
offers some great classics as well... The Worlds of Null A
and Weapons Shops of Isher stand out.
Poul Anderson
simultaneously created/celebrated and lampooned the canonical
pulp hero with his Nicholas van Rijn characters in a series of
works and his PsychoTechnic League is a Future History
to rival Asimov's Foundation series.
I know you
asked for "A favorite" but I'm not so good at
narrowing such things down... hope you made it through my romp
of recommendations and at least one is useful! If you lived
closer (same continent?) I would bequeath you a few boxes of
pulp from that era <grin>...
- Steve
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