Category Archives: science fiction

Minister Faust’s books

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I don’t remember how I found Minister Faust’s books. I’m assuming that From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain popped up on an Amazon Recommendation list because it’s somewhat similar to other books I read at the time. Or possibly because Dr. Brain and his next novel The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad we finalists for the Philip K. Dick Award. But I’m glad I read them both. These books are well done and come from a different point of view than other similar novels (and not because he’s Canadian).

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Steal Across the Sky by Nancy Kress

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Steal Across the Sky by Nancy Kress (author of Beggars in Spain and Probability Space) is a different type of alien contact novel. Where most alien contact novels have the aliens either warring with Earth or helping shepherd Earth to the future, these aliens have come to apologize and atone for their actions 10,000 years ago. No one knows what they did, but the aliens (called Atoners) want to help Earth find out.
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Classic science fiction movies – Rollerball

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Rollerball is a wonderful science-fiction movie about the intersection of politics and sports in a futuristic society. WARNING: Do NOT watch the 2002 remake, instead stick with the 1975 original. By setting the story as a sports film in a futuristic setting, the political story is underplayed and can slip by without being noticed. This was one of the last good James Caan films until his career was revived by Misery.

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Older Books You Should Read – The Man in the High Castle

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The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick was a change of pace for Dick as well as the science fiction genre. While there had been some previous alternate history novels, none had the reach or critical acclaim that Dick’s book had. And for Philip K. Dick, it allowed him to merge his two novel careers together. For most of the 1950s, Dick had been trying to be a successful mainstream writer while he was making a living as a science fiction author. With The Man in the High Castle, Dick was able to have a science fiction genre book which was also was very much a mainstream book. There are no robots or futuristic settings or spaceships, only a cast of characters trying to find their way around a confusing situation.

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Ilium by Dan Simmons

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Ilium by Dan Simmons (author of Drood and Hyperion) is a re-imagining of the Iliad (not quite at the same level as The Lost Books of the Odyssey) mixed with a story of robotic-organic creatures, the Wandering Jew, Odysseus, a bunch of zeks and did I mention the Trojan War is happening on Mars. It is a bold, exciting book that only Dan Simmons could have written.

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Neal Stephenson Week: Anathem

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Anathem is Neal Stephenson’s latest novel and the first one that deals with an explicitly science-fiction setting since The Diamond Age. Stephenson also makes it a difficult read by using new, made-up words to replace common concepts and things. There are good reasons why he did this (and there is a dictionary in the back to help translate), but it takes a while before becoming comfortable reading without having to stop and look up words. Stephenson also provides a tremendous amount of back-story for his world and moves some of his larger digressions to appendixes.

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Neal Stephenson Week: The Baroque Cycle

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The Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusionand The System of the World) by Neal Stephenson is a quasi-science fiction novel set three hundred years in the past. The hardcover version covers 3 books and almost 3000 pages (and was written long hand by Stephenson). It’s an amazing story that deals with a lot of the same themes as Cryptonomicon which it is a prequel (of sorts) to.

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Neal Stephenson Week: Cryptonomicon

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Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson takes us to the present and the past. It touches on many themes including the rise of the internet, cryptography, money and freedom.The book can only loosely be called science fiction since it deals with current technology and past technology, but it deals with a lot of the technology that science fiction fans work with. It’s also a bridge in Stephenson’s writing from the future books to the far past.

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Neal Stephenson Week: The Diamond Age

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The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (full title is The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer) is the next novel by Neal Stephenson after Snow Crash. Where Snow Crash dealt with the internet and Sumerian myths, The Diamond Age deals with nano-technology and historical ages. The Han age for the Chinese and the Victorian Age for Europeans are the ones most used, with Nippon (Japanese) and Hindustan (India) referenced as well. The book follows a young girl raised by an electronic, dynamically generated book and her impact on the world.

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