What I Like About Science Fiction

Talk about how much you like science fiction in mixed company and you’re bound to rapidly descend from whatever echelon of the social ladder you thought you occupied.  I think this is because there are two groups of science fiction novels; literature and trash.

I think of it as the difference between the sci-fi channel movies and 2001: A Space Odyssey.  In many cases, science fiction can tell us something really significant about humanity’s place in the world or tries to make sense out of existence and death and the intricacies of our relationships.  Of course, there are stories like Star Wars, which for all the flashing lights would have us believe it is telling us something, but are really just a façade held up by cardboard.

The difference is more often than not, too subtle for most to grasp.  For example, The Mule (last week’s book) was borderline trash to me because in the instant it could have made profound statements about the human condition or even the invented science of psychohistory, the character called the mule revealed his motivation for galactic warfare to be revenge for society shunning him as a child.  Come on.

Science Fiction literature does not enjoy the mainstream popularity it deserves.  I believe it to be legitimate but I think people see in the genre what they see in horror films, that is to say, only the surface.

Elsewhere On The Interweb...

I just signed up for the 2012 Science Fiction Experience!  It's a part of the blog Stainless Steel Droppings and it runs this year from January 1st to February 29th.  People from all over link to their review of their latest science fiction experience, be it books, movies or whatever.  It isn't a challenge and has few rules, and I'm glad I'll be able to participate.  I'm a little late in the game but with a book a week I should be able to contribute my fair share.  Definitely go check it out, and don't forget the review site (check review #91!).

I didn't know about it until after I finished The Mule but there is also a group read-along (ending February 5th) of Foundation and Empire if you want to see what other people thought of the book.  There are some good questions and more thorough insights than I offered so get over there.

The Mule

My copy from our library

Stats

The Mule by Isaac Asimov

Published 1945 in Astounding Science Fiction

Retro Hugo Awarded in 1996 for 1946

244 pages

Normal book format

I’ll spoil this right now.  My first review is going to be an unashamed panning.  Many people love the Foundation Series books, but I’m going bold.

Since this is the first book, the format and rating system is still up for grabs as far as I’m concerned, so please let me know what works and what doesn’t, or just make your own suggestions.  This is a pretty short discussion so pick on anything you want in the comments.  Enjoy!

Psychohistory

Psychohistory is a branch of mathematical sciences in the Foundation Series which allows scientists, one in particular, to anticipate the future.  Psychohistory assumes individuals are not important on historical scales as an individual’s actions cannot dramatically change the course of history (interestingly though, technological advances are one of the few events that do alter history unexpectedly enough to render psychohistorical computations ineffective).  The founder of the science, Hari Seldon, was able to predict the course of history with an extremely high degree of certainty.  This ability guided him in the creation of The Foundation, the society which would eventually overthrow the Galactic Empire.

The Mule was written in 1945, the year Auschwitz was liberated, and I kept waiting for metaphors about epistemic responsibility or something…anything.  Instead of picking up on the possibility for intense philosophical debate though, The Mule becomes a story of selfish revenge and relies on a surprise twist to keep readers interested.  In the end, psychohistory’s inability to predict the histories of individuals and their emotions, threatens the existence of the Foundation because of The Mule’s mutant ability to read and influence emotions. 

At first glance, you might be tempted to think this is an actual statement about individuality or something, but really I think this was a huge cop-out for Asimov.  In every other instance, Psychohistory was right…but in this case it was wrong.  That is probably an inappropriately simplistic take, but to me it was cheap and disinteresting.  How unfortunate that the most interesting element of the book was also the most disappointing.

“Let me tell you a story”

At the end of the book, The Mule gives one of those evil-plot-and-motivation reveals.  He literally stops and says, “Let me tell you a story.”   I will say this as clearly as I can: any book or film in which this happens is disrespectful to the reader.  All authors should know that we both can and want to interpret complex human emotions and awkward social situations on my own.  This is absolutely unacceptable.  Always.

This is also one of my favorite things to gripe about so allow me to illustrate.

My “Red Delicious” Apple complex: Red delicious apples are universally known to be one of the most disgusting fruits in existence.  They are.  Other apples with names which describe how wonderful they taste are rare and yet, in the case of those apples not named for their taste, they are all decidedly delicious.  So why the hell are they calling these things “Red Delicious”?!  Because we would never care about it or buy it if they didn’t tell us what to think of it.  I hate this, and so should you.  As Vine Deloria penned, “If you think about it, you will see that it is true.”

Similarly, if poor writers didn’t tell us exactly what was happening and how to interpret it, we wouldn’t care.  The effect of this exchange was to make me want to stop reading with five pages left.  My extra sloppy grammar should indicate how upset I was about this ending.  This is pretty elementary stuff and I was really surprised to see it come from one of the most popular science fiction writers ever. 

Recommendation

The pace of this book gave the impression of the film adaption of a wildly popular book.  In this case, the film would have been devoid of the meaningful relationships and dialogue that made the book great and would’ve had an overly fast moving plot with deeply unsatisfying gaps in time large enough to withhold substance and evoke severe frustration.  It is an easy and fast paced read (simply because it spans over a hundred years), but lacks any justification for moving so quickly (little action, flat character development).

I am borderline supes disappointed with this Hugo Award.  The Mule had some good material for possible social commentary but Asimov completely escapes saying anything about it.  So for that which I would normally overlook considerable flaws the book ends up being totally uninteresting and lost my attention.  While the ending was exciting and fast paced, it was only interesting to the extent that unanticipated plot turns can be and the overwhelming feeling I was left with was a bored disinterest.  Although The Mule (Book 2) was marginally better than The General (Book 1) it does not stand on its own and I have a hard time believing this book would have won had they not waited until 1996 to give this award. 

HEP SCORE

Universe: 4/5 (Milky Way Galaxy, never on Earth though!)

Social/Political Climate: 4/5

Dialogue: 1/5

Scientific Wonders: 3/5

Characters: 3/5 (The Mule is really the only saving grace)

Overall: 15/25

In the words of Jack Black, “so far, off to a bad start.”


Edit: I forgot to include mention that I'll be reading The Big Time by Fritz Leiber this week and the roll of the die landed me with Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein next week.  So fun.  Many thanks to my friend Donald for giving me the dice idea!

A Flawed System

The first decade I’ll be reading is the 1950’s but as a result of a “Retro” award being given in 1996 for the year 1946, I’ve included the book in this decade since they didn’t hit every year in the 50’s anyway.  After all the hoopla about how to choose a book, of course the die tells me to read the first winner: The Mule by Isaac Asimov.  I am glad it worked out this way though because this book exposes straight away some of the many flaws with my very serious, but arbitrary, system that I’ve designed.  First, The Mule was originally published as a stand-alone novel but has since been published as Book II of Foundation and Empire, which is itself the second book in his Foundation Series (One of Asimov’s most famous, along with the Robot Series).  So there it is; the first book of this challenge and we've already hit on layer upon layer of problems with this ridiculous, but quasi-legally binding, system that I’ve designed.  Should I also read any books that weren’t winners, but were part of a series?  Should I only read Book II since Book I never won a Hugo Award?  Are Retro Hugo’s even real?  How many pages will count toward my page count?  How many questions can I ask in a row without losing people’s attention?

In order to make my way through this gauntlet of dilemmas, I had to rely on the same method I used to design this challenge.  That is to say, I submitted to whimsy and rapidly decided whatever the stink I felt like doing.  Of course, the most important of those questions was answered for me when I realized there are some winners like Mirror Dance which are quite deep in their series (it’s book 14 of the Vorkosigan Saga) and I would never be able to go through and read every book from every series (despite the very real anguish this causes me).  Although it makes sense, it could still present some very serious problems.  When the awards were voted on, readers presumably had the benefit of reading all the books leading up to that year’s winner.  Without that benefit, will I think less of a book without having met the characters before?  I really struggled with this problem so I think I very probably will.  So, consider this your warning that there might be some pretty heavy caveat-ing of some of my future posts.


In any case, this should be an exciting book as Asimov represents one of the “Big Three” of science fiction along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke.  If we’ve learned anything from the amount of big three’s that have come and gone in the NBA, we should always be cautious about what seems to be the easy favorites.  In particular, Asimov was extremely prolific, having written over 100 books, so the likelihood that even a goodly portion will be home runs seems dubious to me.  I have also never read anything by Asimov before so all in all, I think the stakes are pretty damn high this week (which is a great way to start).

In order to make sure I have time to get books from various sources, I’ll be rolling the die a week in advance so here you go.  Next week’s book will be the 1958 (non-retro) winner, The Big Time by Fritz Leiber.