"2001 A space Odyssee" (A. C. Clarke - 1968)

KIND OF LITERATURE : (Hard) science fiction…and maybe Space opera in the end of the story ?

LANDSCAPES : An African plain at the prehistoric epoch, a lunar base, a suborbital station, and the inner life of a space ship, all white coloured.

STORY :
Part 1 :
In Africa, at the dawn of Humanity, a tribe of great apes, the Man’s ancestor, tries to survive and to fight against hunger and wild animals, when a mysterious crystal block appears in the plain…

Part 2 :
In the USA, Professor Heywood Floyd, President of the national astronautic council, flies to the moon to study a strange magnetic anomaly : AMT – 1 : A huge block of black matter, intentionally buried 3 million years ago…

Part 3 :
2 years after the AMT – 1 discovery, a spaceship is send towards Saturn, officially to study the famous rings…But Carl, the first artificial intelligence equiped computer, is the only one to know the real goal of the journey…
The computer, obliged to lie to the astronauts, starts to feel guilty and try to kill them. Dave Bowman is the only survivor. Now alone in the spaceshift, and out of control of any rescue expedition, the control center on Earth reveals him the real goal of the expedition. Then, Dave Bowman decides to fly near Japet, a satellite of Saturn, and what he discovers there is far beyond anything he could have imagine…

TOPICS :
- How and by which means the Mankind did develop itself ?
- The Man is not alone in the Universe
- Until what point men can trust the artificial intelligence ?
- The black out maintained by the authorities on some events that could panic the populations

CONTEXT :
This story has been written one year before the first man land on the Moon, in a cold war atmosphere ( we notice that when Dr Floyd meet some Russians engineers on the moon base)

COMMENTS :

A story absolutely not old fashioned, described in a very realistic way, based sometimes on real facts (for exemple, the Tycho crater on the Moon really exists, as well as Japet – see picture below), which makes this story absolutely credible. Clarke talks also about some gadgets that have been invented nowadays, such as the small block allowing to read newspapers on the moon…

Talking about the characters, Clark put them into situations where it is impossible to not identify to them : The Professor Floyd describing very simply the life in space, Dave Bowman absolutely alone in the spaceshift,…. What is interesting is that with very few elements, Clarke is able to give a psychological identity to his characters.

The writing style of Clarke is vivid, precise and clear (the French translation by Michel Demuth is very well written). The text cut into short chapters with tittles helps make the reading more comfortable.

A masterpiece build on one of the biggest question asked by Mankind : Are we alone in the
Universe ? Clarke suggests a very plausible hypothesis.

I really loved that book because he deals with a classical topic of science fiction – the discovery of an extraterrestrial life – in a very rational and scientific way ( just like an investigation), but still easy to understand for any reader.

BONUS :
The two paints in the room where is Dave Bowman in the end of his journey :

Pont en Arles de Van Gogh :


Christina’s world de Wyeth :

GLOBAL VALUATION :
1 – to Avoid
2 – Not really interesting
3 – It is worth reading
4 - Excellent

"Martian chronicles" (Bradbury - 1951)

KIND OF LITERATURE : poetic science fiction

LANDSCAPES :
On Mars, a house made of cristal, and, in the background, wide sand landscapes : valleys, hills, the famous martian channels ( with or without water, depending on the epoch), old ghost cities made up with white stone and wonderful mosaic floorings (see the pictures below, from the TV serie I had the chance to watch here in France when I was a teenager):

STORY :
The harmonious life of the true last martians, next the human conquest of Mars through 4 expeditions (the astronauts of the 3 first one have been killed by the martians). In the end, a bacterium, the chickenpox, brought by men, kill the last true martians. We observe how the men destroy what’s left of the martian civilization, the same way they have destroyed the human civilization on Earth, which is about to self – desctruct.

TOPICS :
- The conquest of a foreign planet by the mankind
- The martians depicted as pacific and the men as violent, proud and stupid (There is here a contradiction, because don’t forget the nice martians have destroyed the first 3 expeditions ( by self defense I suppose)
- How men use to destroy their world by racism, intolerance (against some kind of art – The”Usher’s house” -), violence…
- Telepathy, hypnosis

CONTEXT :
1945 : End of racial segregation in the USA
1950 / 1953 : Cold War, Mc Carthysm in the USA (paranoia about the “reds”, the communists , being everywhere in the American society : Politics, arts,…. We call it “witches chase” here in France.

COMMENTS :
You musn’t miss this book. This story, very well written in a very simple style, is made up with many short stories describing either the human point of view, or the martian’s. There’s a lot of poetic moments, especially in the ”nocturnal meetings” and “The long years” chapters. The men arrived more and more numerous on Mars, with no envy to know who was here before them. The vision of Bradbury is of course a little bit excessive : The evil men against the nice and innocent martians…but that doesn’t interfere with the very great charm of this story, a great science fiction classic .

GLOBAL VALUATION :
1 – to Avoid
2 – Not really interesting
3 – It is worth reading
4 - Excellent

How to have a science fiction culture ??

When I was a teenager, I have read some great classics of scifi, such as "Martian Chronicles", "2001 space Odyssee", some Lovecraft stuffs,...

Now, I feel interrested again by this type of literature in which we can observe our own world, which make us think about what we will be in the future according to what's happening now.

So I would like to rediscover this great classics, and some new writers too, to make my own science fiction culture.

This is the reason of this blog : At first, to keep some traces of what I have read, and to share them with others maybe like me, that are just at the beginning of the journey...

Because it's not easy to find its way in this jungle of styles (fantasy, cyberpunk, new wave, space opera, ...) and of writers from about 1800 to nowadays...And when you are in front of a bookshop display, it's worse...What's hidden behind these short description and colourful cover, uhh ????

Of course, there is the awards ( Hugo, Locus, Grand prix de l'imaginaire, and so on...) to guide us, but that's not enough...If the story doesn't catch my attention, well...I won't by it.

I should say that the best books are the ones we prefer...

"The mysterious island" (J. Verne - 1874)

KIND OF LITERATURE : Classical Science Fiction

LANDSCAPES :
An island with many views : Forests, beaches, grotto,…and the sea, out of sight

STORY :
During the Sessession war in the USA, 3 prisoners escape in climbing into an airship. A storm comes, they send away all their possessions to help the airship to fly higher, in vain. In the end, they land by force on a desert island.

The book describes how the 3 men will cope with that situation without any tool to help them to survive. By chance they have with them an engineer, who will be a great help to organize their survival by building a mill, a bridge, an so on.

A while after their arrival on the island, some strange events will happen : Each time one of them is endangered, some kind of invisible power will save them .We learn in the end that this mysterious and kindly presence is the Captain Nemo, who has been living under the seas for 30 years…

TOPICS :
- The conquest of a new earth by the Man
- Nature is sometimes stronger than men
- Brotherhood, necessary to survive ( Verne, very optimistic, never talk about some fight between the 3 men…a little bit hard to believe in this kind of situation)
- The rational (Cyrus the engineer) opposed to the supernatural (Pencroft the dreamer)
- Efforts bring always a reward
- Science is powerful
- The notion of positivism : the Man has to question himself about how to do things and not on why doing things

CONTEXT :
Industrialization begins in Great Britain in 1770 with the steam machines. This technology arrives in France in 1820/1830, and the electricity arrives in 1870, 4 years before the writing of this book.

COMMENTS :
The style is very precise, fluent and visual. The intrigue is very well kept until the end, with many rebounces. As a result, I read the 800 pages in 9 days !

Verne lays the stress on the ability of the human kind to improve oneself whether in the skills fiels (the characters have learned may jobs to fit out their island), or in the behaviour aspect ( redemption of Ayrton and Captain Nemo)

The cover (silver and red) made by the french editor “Le livre de poche” is really wonderful, plus the original engravings inside. A short description of what will happen at the beginning of each chapter is a good idea to go always further in reading… and also if you want to read quicker in avoiding some pages…

In conclusion, a very pleasant reading. Of course, you can argue that the story has nothing to do with science fiction, which is not completely wrong… But I have not enough knowledge on how building a mill or a bridge to say the Jules Verne described some future technologies to build them ( maybe it is the case ????)

GLOBAL VALUATION :
1 – to Avoid
2 – Not really interesting
3 – It is worth reading
4 - Excellent