David reads books

On reading science fiction

Although I have been an avid reader and lover of books all my life it is only recently that I have taken a serious interest in science fiction. When I was at high school The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin was one of the set texts in my final year English class. I also remember reading The Triffids by John Wyndham and The War of the Worlds by HG Wells.

Yet despite having a good introduction to some of the sci-fi classics I never took a special interest in the genre. As a university student I read most of Ursula Le Guin's books, but this was because I thought Le Guin was a great writer, not because I was specifically interested in science fiction. I also read Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Some might argue whether these books actually qualify as sci-fi. I guess I read them for the humour anyway.

I don't know whether science fiction is really the best word to use to describe some of these books anyway. I prefer the term speculative fiction which can be similarly abbreviated to SF. It can refer to a broader spectrum of literature including science fiction, fantasy, horror and alternative history.

Considering the field of speculative fiction also includes fantasy I can add to the list of books that I read earlier. I read The Hobbit when I was eleven or twelve and loved it. However, it took me about ten years before I finally read the entire "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. I tried reading a few other fantasy books but I found them derivative and unoriginal. Acknowledging Tolkien is one thing, but trying to write books that are little more than poor clones of his work is really unforgivable. I am sure there are some good works of fantasy out there, but I haven't read them yet.

My real interest in SF was prompted after a friend recommended the book Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I liked it so much that I went on to read the rest of the Ender Saga and a couple more of Card's novels. Reading these books helped me overcome some of my prejudices towards science fiction -- namely that the writing is one dimensional with little character development.

After Card I moved on to reading Frank Herbert's Dune. It was dense reading but I was impressed by the originality of the novel in constructing an entire world so vastly different from our own. I read the second book in the series, too.

I don't know why it took me so long to finally get around to reading Asimov. And when I did it was kind of indirectly. My introduction to Asimov came via the novel Nightfall which is based on one of Asimov's short stories of the same name. The novel itself was co-written by Robert Silverberg.

Nightfall struck me as such an important and relevant story. It was on reading this book that I realised sci-fi was not just fantasy set in space. It was about examining the human condition and asking questions about what would happen if... The whole world of SF was suddenly opening up to me and I picked up books by Philip K Dick, Ray Bradbury and Kim Stanley Robinson.

One thing about SF is that it is about imagining alternative realities. One genre where this is achieved in a novel way is alternative history. Two examples of great works in this genre are The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson and The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick.

The Years of Rice and Salt is a history of the world based on the premise that a plague wiped out the population of Europe in the 14^th Century and China rose to be the centre of world power. The Man in the High Castle takes a more recent look at history as it might have been. It tells of a world where Germany and Japan were the victors in WWII.

After taking an interest in science fiction novels I also began to take a greater interest in science fiction in popular culture. I don't watch television so I might have missed some good television series, but I do watch movies and there have been a number of successful science fiction movies made in recent years. Steven Spielberg's The Minority Report was great, even if it did star Tom Cruise, as was his movie A.I. The movie adaptation of Asimov's I, Robot was probably great for fans of action films starring Will Smith, but it didn't really do justice to the book and the ideas behind it. Serenity was a great film even though it was probably more of a Western set in space than hard science fiction.

The world of SF is something that I have only just begun to explore. I am sure there are many more gems out there waiting to be discovered.

Labels: books

posted by David @ 8:51 AM