"After Such Knowledge" by James Blish

I recently finished the thematic trilogy "After Such Knowledge" by James Blish.
The book consists of four novels: "Dr. Mirabilis", "Black Easter", "The Day After Judgement", "A Case of Conscience". The last of these was recently reprinted as number 30 in the Gollancz SF Masterworks series, which is kind of like Pokemon for science fiction nerds who don't also collect Pokemon. I just checked, I still have 28 out of 70 to read.

A while ago, I reviewed "Cities in Flight" (number 3 in the SF Masterworks series). I enjoyed the scope of those works (which spanned from the present day to the end of time) and Blish's approach (applying the lessons of history to the future).

I wasn't sure what to think when I started "Dr. Mirabilis". I was expecting science fiction, and instead faced lovingly detailed historical fiction, a biography of the 12th century friar and scientist Roger Bacon. Blish presents Bacon as a man obsessed with expanding scientific knowledge through experimentation, making him one of the first modern scientists. It is clear that Blish feels Bacon was held back in his accomplishments by the time in which he lived, and that his accomplishments are all the more amazing as a result. The drama of "Dr. Mirabilis" hinges as often on points of principle and ethical choices as well as points of science. It's challenging fare, and reminded me of the excellent "Canticle for Leibowitz" by Walter M. Miller.

By comparison, the rest of the series was much shorter and more straightforward. "Black Easter" and "The Day After Judgement" are two parts of the same story. They present a world in which magic is made possible by collusion with demons and angels. Dark magic is soul-damning but effective, and it is used to terrifying effect in both novels. I won't say anything about the specifics, other than to say that the ending of "The Day After Judgement" is both surprising and great.

The final novel ("A Case of Conscience") is a morality play set in space, and more than any other book I've read outlines how belief a deeply spiritual man's belief in God would be changed by an encounter with a world that defies church canon about the nature of life, God, and the Devil. It's understandable that this would be the only one of the series to be included in a list of science fiction masterworks, as it's the only one that includes the usual trappings of science fiction (rockets, alien races, and the simple fact that it's set in the future.)

Of the three, I would have to say that "A Case of Conscience" was my favorite. "Black Easter" and "The Day After Judgement" are short, and are worth reading in order to understand their truly great ending. "Dr. Mirabilis" is a long read and probably is more of interest to history buffs than science fiction readers. Still, it's a good book, and I'm glad to have read it.

"Greybeard" by Brian Aldiss

After reading "Non-stop" and a confusing misprinted edition of "Cryptozoic" last year, I thought I would give Brian Aldiss another go. I picked up a tattered copy of "Greybeard" and finished it on a lazy summer afternoon.

This is yet another end-of-the-world scenario, in which atomic testing has rendered all of mankind sterile. Extinction by attrition is terrain well-trod by later works such as "Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang", "Galapagos", and the recent film "Children of Men".

In "Greybeard", we follow members of the last generation as they make their way through the ruins of the world. This is a society of the old, which lacks the infusion of energy and new ideas that each new generation brings. After the "accident", the first changes are small. Businesses dependent on the young (record shops, toy shops) falter before anyone understands why. Eventually, people understand their situation, and the hopelessness of a future without children infects all levels of society. Government and industry break down, and disease, decay, and vermin break down the corpse of human society where it falls. There is no apparent future to work for, and so people selfishly wring what sustenance and comfort they can out of the world, often without regard for the people they must kill or enslave to do so.

In reading this book, I was reminded of "World Out of Time" by Larry Niven. Niven's work depicts one man from our society encountering an alien and distant society of the far future. The turning point of the story hinges on discovering a key piece of technology that holds the secret to eternal youth. There was the suggestion of something similar early on in "Greybeard", and I kept expecting Aldiss to unveil a technological solution (a secret project that leaves an incredible legacy, etc.). The Deus Ex Machina never comes. It is life, rather than science that finds a way.

Instead of an immortality treatment, "Greybeard" offers us something more relevant to our lives. We see characters who are forced into a series of seemingly hopeless situations. They regain some measure of dignity and integrity by realizing that they can and must move beyond the meaningless echoes of the previous society that deaden and degrade most and benefit a privileged few.

This is the not a novel like "To Your Scattered Bodies Go", in which the things that constrain us are set aside to allow us to realize our full potential. Instead, it is a novel about the ways in which humans realize their potential in spite of all constraints, and is well worth a read.

I would loan you my copy, but its binding has decayed beyond repair, even as its ideas are passed on, which seems fitting. Perhaps my copy of "To Your Scattered Bodies Go" (in similar disrepair) will be resurrected with its youth and vigor on some distant planet... :)

"Gods of Riverworld" by Philip José Farmer

I finished "Gods of Riverworld" by Philip José Farmer a while ago. I've waited a while to write this up, as I was kind of lukewarm on the last book in the Riverworld series.

In the Riverworld, people have souls ("wathans"). It doesn't matter that they were created using technology, the important thing is that a soul can take on new bodies, and continues doing so until it moves beyond its need for reality and becomes one with the "oversoul". This technological Buddishm was the central premise of the first four novels, and I liked this idea a lot.

Imagine my surprise when Farmer came along in the fifth book and tinkered with the formula. It's his to tinker with, of course. It doesn't mean I have to like it though. To me, it seems like he swapped something spiritual for something political. Instead of a state of nirvana that an individual achieves in their own way, enlightenment is now like a doctoral thesis, you get it as soon as you can convince the doctoral committee. I found this somehow less satisfying.

I have to admit that I found the book a bit tiresome for other reasons. Farmer realized that he could pull from anywhere in history, and to do this well, he obviously did an awful lot of research. After a certain point, though, we get somewhat dry backstories for each character presented as a whole. I realize it's necessary to introduce the major characters, and that their histories are relevant, but if we encounter smaller portions of their history over time, it's a bit less taxing. Iain Banks is quite good at this, bringing back hints of a larger history, showing us that his characters have a past by presenting scenes from their lives. In earlier books in the series, the main characters' previous lives were introduced over time, in segments, and as relevant to the story. By the time we get to the fifth book, Farmer is almost throwing his raw notes about each character's biography at us.

This is not to say that the book didn't have its moments. It's just not as enjoyable as the first four books, and for me at least ventures into the same kind of cringeworthy revisionism that tarnishes "Star Wars: Episode One" for anyone old enough to have seen the original series first.

Take my advice and stop with the fourth book ("The Magical Labyrinth").

"The Synthetic Man" by Theodore Sturgeon

In preparation for an upcoming move (across town), I've been working through a pile of books so that I can sell them back to the Book Exchange and lighten the load a bit. One of the recent quickies I whipped through is "The Synthetic Man" by Theodore Sturgeon. I had previously read and enjoyed "More Than Human", which was featured in the Gollancz "Sci-fi Masterworks" collection that revived my interest in reading the classics of the genre.

This book reminds me of "Blood Music" by Greg Bear. The protagonist of both books has a power he is at first unaware of, but which grows as his confidence and awareness grow. In this case, we follow "Horty", a boy who becomes an extraordinary man. He is both more and less than human. As mentioned on the back cover, as a boy he loses three fingers, which reminded me of "Demon with a Glass Hand" just a little bit, even though the two stories are very different.

A better comparison is with Borges' "The Circular Ruins", where a man is imagined into being by another man until the imagined man assumes a life of his own. This book seems like a simpler treatment of the same idea.

Still, it's entertaining enough. If you want a quick read that lies somewhere between the heady fare of Borges and the guilty pleasure of pure space opera, there are worse ways to spend your time.

"The Dark Side of the Earth" by Alfred Bester

Now that I have a steady source for paperback editions of classic science fiction in town (the Book Exchange here in Amsterdam), I have been picking up a sampling of books from authors I've enjoyed previously. In the latest batch, I picked up "The Dark Side of the Earth" by Alfred Bester, whose "The Stars My Destination" is one of the all-time classics, and whose other great work "The Demolished Man" isn't far behind.

"The Dark Side of the Earth" is a collection of short stories. As with many collections of this type, there are a few gems and a few misfires. The highlights of this collection are "Time is the Traitor" and "They Don't Make Life Like They Used to". "Time is the Traitor" is a meditation on memory and loss, and succeeds fairly well.

"They Don't Make Life Like They Used to" is a post-apocalyptic story in the same vein as "Night of the Comet" or "The Quiet Earth". In both those films, a handful of survivors attempt to live out their lonely lives in the ruins of our society, and have what fun they can doing it. The story is mostly about the characters, we never really even know how the world ended. It's speculative fiction more than science fiction, characters driven by fantastic circumstances, but still recognizably and endearingly human.

A few of the other stories just seem a bit dated, or maybe they just didn't suit my mood at the time I read them. Regardless, there are enough gems to make this worth picking up.

"Inside Outside" by Philip José Farmer

Hot on the heels of finishing the "Riverworld" series by Philip José Farmer, I decided to go through one of his shorter works, "Inside Outside". I got a strange sense of déja vu reading this. Farmer paints a world in which people are resurrected after death, and in which they can't die. They are watched by advanced beings, whose goal is to help them reach enlightenment. This should sound really familiar to anyone who has read the Riverworld series.

"Inside Outside" was published a few years before "To Your Scattered Bodies Go", and to me seems like a beta version or a sketch for the later work. This isn't to say that it's a bad book. It's just good in a less epic way.

I would recommend this if you like Philip José Farmer and the Riverworld series, or if you just want a good old-fashioned simple sci-fi novel with a couple of mildly amusing twists.

"The Magic Labyrinth" by Philip José Farmer

I was hooked by "To Your Scattered Bodies Go" a few weeks ago, and have been blazing through the rest of the series. I just finished "The Magic Labyrinth", the fourth book, which completes the major arc that brings the "lazari" of the Riverworld face to face with the people responsible for bringing them back to life on this new world.

The first installment was largely the story of Richard Burton, and introduced the questions whose answers might lie at the source of the river. The second book was largely the story of Samuel Clemens and his dream of building a boat that (among other things) is the best hope of travelling upstream to the source of the river. As the river windws around the entire planet, most of the third book was spent in transit.

The fourth book brings us in sight of the goal and unlocks its secrets (or at least some of them). It's a major payoff after a series of small revelations and a long journey with these (now familiar) character. Well worth the time.

I'm working on the fifth book "Gods of Riverworld" at the moment and will review that in a few.