The Defining Science Fiction Books of the 1990s

1950s – 1960s – 1970s – 1980s

The 1990s was the last decade of the century and the millennium, and although science fiction has been around for centuries, it feels like the genre blossomed in the second half of the 20th century.  By the last decade it feels fantasy flavored SF had overtaken hard science fiction in popular appeal, but many of the most successful science fiction books of the 1990s were about space travel.  Vernor Vinge, Iain M. Banks, Dan Simmons, and Peter F. Hamilton began paving the way for the New Space Opera of the 2000s.  Ben Bova, Greg Bear and Kim Stanley Robinson used NASA’s recent knowledge of the solar system to build new visions of interplanetary colonization.  And more than ever, science fiction is concerned with the post-human future.

SF writers of 1990s represents the centennial descendants of H. G. Wells, and his genre originating novels The Time Machine (1895) and War of the Worlds (1898).  Where Wells explored the impact of Darwinism, 1990s science fiction writers were inspired by NASA interplanetary probes, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the many breakthroughs in contemporary cosmology.  It’s quite amazing, but in the 1990s, both the scientific universe and science fictional universes are tremendously bigger than the objective reality of the 1950s and its science fictional universes.  Heinlein, Asimov and Clarke loom large in our history, but modern science fiction writers stand on their shoulders and see much further than they ever imagined.

Yet, I would claim by the 1990s that it was obvious that science fiction had forked in its evolution.  On one hand, we still have a branch of science fiction inspired by science, but on the other hand, it’s all too obvious that the larger branch of science fiction is inspired by older science fiction.  New sub-genres like Military SF, seemed descended from 1959’s Starship Troopers by Heinlein, and isn’t the sub-genre of galactic empire romances descended from Asimov’s Foundation stories?  NASA will never be able to send a probe to either of these universes.  Whereas, Kim Stanley Robinson and Michael Flynn are practically begging NASA to use their books as blueprints for its future budgets.

A handful of writers dominated the decade with their series books.  Lois McMaster Bujold, Connie Willis, Kim Stanley Robinson and Vernor Vinge, all won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards as well as getting many nominations, and winning other genre awards.

Kim Stanley Robinson set the standard for hard science fiction with his decade spanning Mars trilogy.  He won two Hugos and one Nebula by writing about a realistic colonization of the Red planet.

Lois McMaster Bujold had so many award winning books in the 1990s that picking the best is impossible.  The Vor Game, Barrayar, Mirror Dance, Cetaganda, Memory, Komarr and A Civil Campaign are probably getting even more readers today than in the 1990s.  The Vorkosigan Saga just keeps on growing.  And fans debate whether new readers should follow publication order or internal chronological order.

Connie Willis won five Hugos and three Nebulas in the 1990s, with The Doomsday Book winning both.  Willis has carved out a much loved series based on time travel and history, blending two genres together, and like Bujold, Willis keeps expanding her series today.

Vernor Vinge picked up two Hugos and two Nebula nominations for A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky, proving that fans still love a good space opera.

Some people have asked me how I make up these lists of memorable science fiction books.  The first one, about the 1950s, was more from personal memory, but eventually I discovered various resources I used for the later decades.  I start with Internet Speculative Fiction Database.  I use its advanced search and look up novels, language and type.   I only worry about books in English.  I go down their listings looking for books I remember reading or reading about.  I can right click on any title to bring up it’s bibliographic record which includes how often it was reprinted and whether or not it won any awards.  Most valuable is whether the book made the Locus Poll that year.  That’s the first indicator how popular a book was with the fans during the year it came out.

I also study various best of lists to discern long term popularity.  I look for books that get picked time and again.  This is how I create the short list called the Best Remembered books.  The longer Defining Books list are those books which got particular notice during the year they came out.  Most of these have been frequently reprinted and are often on some of the best SF of all time lists.  I avoided fantasy novels unless they won or were nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, or other SF award.

Best of Book Lists

• The Classics of Science Fiction By Year
• Top 100 Sci-Fi Books
• Next 100 Sci-Fi Books
• NPR Top 100 SF/F Books
• Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels (David Pringle pre-1985)
• Locus Best SF Novels of All-Time (pre-1990)
• ISFDB Top Books by Year
• All the Lists at Worlds Without End

The Best Remembered Science Fiction Books of the 1990s

• The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons (1990)
• Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick (1991)
• A Fire Upon the Deep/A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
• Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (1992)
• The Doomsday Book/To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
• The Giver by Lois Lowry (1993)
• Parable of the Sower/Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler (1994)
• The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (1995)
• A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin (1996)
• The Sparrow/Children of God by Mary Doria Russell
• The Vor Game/Barrayar/Mirror Dance/A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Defining Science Fiction Books of the 1990s

1990
	Earth by David Brin In the Country of the Blind by Michael F. Flynn Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton Only Begotten Daughter by James Morrow Pacific Edge by Kim Stanley Robinson Redshift Rendezvous by John E. Stith The Difference Engine by Gibson and Sterling The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons The Quiet Pools by Michael P. Kube-McDowell The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold Use of Weapons Iain M. Banks Voyage of the Red Planet by Terry Bisson
1991
	A Woman of the Iron People by Eleanor Arnason All the Weyrs of Pern by Anne McCaffrey Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede by Bradley Denton Bone Dance by Emma Bull Carve the Sky by Alexander Jablokov Fallen Angels by Niven, Pournelle and Flynn King of Morning, Queen of Day by Ian McDonald Heavy Time by C. J. Cherryh Orbital Resonance by John Barnes Raft by Stephen Baxter Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick Synners by Pat Cadigan The Dark Beyond the Stars by Frank M. Robinson The Summer Queen by Joan D. Vinge Xenocide by Orson Scott Card
1992
	A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge A Million Open Doors by John Barnes Brother to Dragons by Charles Sheffield Chanur’s Legacy by C. J. Cherryh China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh Fools by Pat Cadigan Jumper by Steven Gould Mars by Ben Bova Quarantine by Greg Egan Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson Sideshow by Sheri S. Tepper Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson Steel Beach by John Varley The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
1993
	A Plague of Angels by Sheri S. Tepper Against a Dark Background by Iain M. Banks Ammonite by Nicola Griffith Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress Crashcourse by Wilhelmina Baird Glory Season by David Brin Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson Growing Up Weightless by John M. Ford Hard Landing by Algis Budrys Moving Mars by Greg Bear Nightside the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe On Basilisk Station by David Weber Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler The Giver by Lois Lowry The Norton Book of Science Fiction ed. Le Guin and Attebery The Rediscovery of Man by Cordwainer Smith Virtual Light by William Gibson Vurt by Jeff Noon
1994
	Beggars & Choosers by Nancy Kress Brittle Innings by Michael Bishop Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks Foreigner by C. J. Cherryh Gun, with Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem Heavy Weather by Bruce Sterling Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold Mother of Storms by John Barnes Mysterium by Robert Charles Wilson Permutation City by Greg Egan Queen City Jazz by Kathleen Ann Goonan Remake by Connie Willis The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt Towing Jehovah by James Morrow Trouble and Her Friends by Melissa Scott
1995
	Brightness Reef by David Brin Chaga by Ian McDonald Distress by Greg Egan Far Futures ed. Gregory Benford Invader by C. J. Cherryh Legacy by Greg Bear Metropolitan by Walter Jon Williams Sailing Bright Eternity by Gregory Benford Slow River by Nicola Griffith The Bohr Maker by Linda Nagata The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson The Terminal Experiment by Robert J. Sawyer The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter Women of Wonder ed. Pamela Sargent
1996
	A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin Bellwether by Connie Willis Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson Cetaganda by Lois McMaster Bujold Endymion by Dan Simmons Excession by Iain M. Banks Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling Memory Lois McMaster Bujold Reclamation by Sarah Zettel Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon Starplex by Robert J. Sawyer The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell Voyage by Stephen Baxter
1997
	/ by Greg Bear A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson City of Fire by Walter Jon Williams Diaspora by Greg Egan Finity’s End by C. J. Cherryh Fool’s War by Sarah Zettel Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman Frameshift by Robert J. Sawyer In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker Jack Faust by Michael Swanwick Signs of Life by M. John Harrison The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons Think  Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories by James Patrick Kelly
1998
	Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson Children of God by Mary Doria Russell Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson Distraction by Bruce Sterling Dreaming in Smoke by Tricia Sullivan Factoring Humanity by Robert J. Sawyer Mission Child by Maureen F. McHugh Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler The Alien Years by Robert Silverberg The Cassini Division by Ken MacLeod To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
1999
	A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card Teranesia by Greg Egan The Sky Road by Ken MacLeod

JWH – 5/2/13

The Defining Science Fiction Books of the 1980s

I’ve been reading science fiction for over fifty years, and I’m touring my SF memories decade by decade.  So far I’ve written about the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

Something happened to the world of science fiction books in the 1980s.  The genre grew, gaining new writers, publishers and readers.  Star Trek and Star Wars got millions of media fans to try reading SF, often introduced by novelizations.  Science fiction became big business.  From my view of the genre, two SF books went nova in the eighties:  Neuromancer and Ender’s Game, making William Gibson and Orson Scott Card the breakout science fiction writers of the decade, like Delany and Zelazny had been for the 1960s.

Computers and video games made the 1980s a happening decade for science fiction.  Personal computers became all the rage, with the IBM PC being introduced in 1981 and the Apple Macintosh in 1984.  Fandom shifted from fanzines to computer networks like CompuServe and GEnie, connecting readers to the cyber world – letting us all live in a science fictional reality.  Kids growing up with Atari 2600s from the 1970s, jumped to the Nintendo, accelerating the cyber addiction of the 1980s, so is it any wonder that in the mid-80s that teens totally resonated with Ender’s Game and Neuromancer?   They were what the Heinlein juveniles were to my generation.

Now this is a longshot, but I think it was the massive influx of female fans that made Ender’s Game a mega success.  Over the years I’ve been surprised by countless women telling me that Ender’s Game is one of their all-time favorite books.  This was particularly shocking because most of my lady bookworm friends didn’t read science fiction.  Ender’s Game got them started on the genre though, if only a book now and then.

Ender’s Game is often taught in schools, and I’ve met both students and teachers who have gushed over this story.  To me Ender’s Game was just another outstanding science fiction novel, but to new readers it was a mind blowing introduction to the world of written science fiction.  They grew up on science fiction comics, television shows, games, toys and movies, but it’s the books that are the real heroin of science fiction addiction.  Remember, the Golden Age of Science Fiction is 12, and to the 1980s generation, their time was just as exciting to them, as the 1960s were to us baby boomers.

These essays about remembering past decades of science fiction are about memory – my memory, our collective fan memory, and maybe the world at large memory of science fiction.  I’m not the only person looking backwards at science fiction.   Last year, Ernest Cline remembered the 1980s in his novel Ready Player One, and its over-the-top success is due to Cline speaking directly to the heart of the Nintendo generation.  The year before that, Jo Walton remembered growing up with science fiction in her novel Among Others.  Walton spoke to the heart of introverted science fiction bookworms, which won her the Hugo, Nebula and British Fantasy Awards.  Here is a list of novels she wrote about in Among Others.  Most of the science fiction books she mentions have been listed in my defining decades lists, but her novel goes further because Walton also remembers fantasy, classics and non-genre books.  Walton resonated with lonely book lovers everywhere.

With each succeeding decade, science fiction gets more sophisticated, and the overall quality of writing improves.  More people take science fiction seriously, and science fiction becomes more serious.  It’s still escapism, but the stories are getting longer and less simplistic.  It also obvious by the 1980s that the genre was shifting more towards fantasy, a trend that has been accelerating ever since.

Science fiction became big in the 1980s.  Bigger books, more books, more series, bigger series, wordier writing, and bigger sales.  In the 1980s writers took to writing trilogies and series like never before.  Lois McMaster Bujold is another standout writer of the 1980s, by developing a huge fan base for her Vorkosigan series.  Her 1980 books won awards back then, but they are still huge sellers today because the series keeps growing. Every new convert to her fictional universe wants to jump back to the 1980s to start the series from the beginning.

For the long list below, I only list the first book in a series unless a later title makes some kind of splash, wins an award, or was very popular for that year.  The 1980s was dominated by series, both new and renewed.  As you gander down the list, think of how many of these stories are part of a bigger whole?  Orson Scott Card, C. J. Cherryh, Iain M. Banks and Lois McMaster Bujold started series in the 1980s that continue to current times.  Isaac Asimov capitalized on his classic Foundation and Robot series in the 1980s in a tremendous way.  David Brin and Gene Wolfe wrote two standout series of the decade.  Dan Simmons started his Hyperion series at the end of the decade.  The most memorable books of the decade were seldom standalone novels.

Not only did we see more series books, but the books seem to be getting bigger, and some writers developed baroque writing styles, moving science fiction away from fast action pulp writing.  Gardner Dozois started his annual The Year’s Best Science Fiction series in 1984, by showcasing a massive amount of short fiction in a single volume.  The 1980s was a boom time for science fiction.

The 1980s will also be remembered for the Cyberpunk moment.  Neuromancer by William Gibson got a subgenre rolling that breathed new life into the old genre.  It was as revolutionary as the New Wave had been back in the 1960s, with Bruce Sterling leading the charge with his fanzine Cheap Truth.  The SF big three, Heinlein-Clarke-Asimov, the old guard of classic 1950s SF, were still selling lots of books, but their future visions were being eclipsed by new ones from Young Turks.

I divide the decade into two lists.  First, a short list for those books that are the most remembered today, and maybe most known by people who don’t normally read science fiction.  Then, a longer list of the books that hardcore science fiction fans should remember, and probably newer fans are slowly discovering.

The Best Remembered Science Fiction Books of the 1980s

• Timescape by Gregory Benford (1980)
• Startide Rising by David Brin (1983)
• Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984)
• Blood Music by Greg Bear (1985)
• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (1985)
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985)
• Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card (1986)
• The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold (1986)
• Replay by Ken Grimwood  (1987)
• Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold (1988)
• Hyperion by Dan Simmons (1989)

The Defining Science Fiction Books of the 1980s

1980
	Beyond the Blue Event Horizon by Frederik Pohl Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg Mockingbird by Walter Tevis Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban Roderick by John T. Sladek Sundiver by David Brin The Arbor House Treasury of Great Science Fiction Short Novels edited by Robert Silverberg The Garden of Delight by Ian Watson The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge The Visitors by Clifford D. Simak Timescape by Gregory Benford Wild Seed Octavia Butler Wizard by John Varley
1981
	Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh Dream Park by Niven and Barnes God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert Little, Big by John Crowley Oath of Fealty Niven and Pournelle Radix by A. A. Attanasio Sandkings by George R. R. Martin The Claw of the Conciliator by Gene Wolfe The Divine Invasion by Philip K. Dick The Many-Colored Land by Julian May The Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee VALIS by Philip K. Dick Windhaven by Martin & Tuttle
1982
	2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke A Rose for Armageddon by Hilbert Schenck Courtship Rite by Donald Kingsbury Foundation’s Edge by Isaac Asimov Friday by Robert A. Heinlein Helliconia Spring by Brian W. Aldiss In Viriconium by M. John Harrison No Enemy But Time by Michael Bishop Psion by Joan D. Vinge Software by Rudy Rucker The Compass Rose by Ursula K. Le Guin The Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffrey The Sword of the Lictor by Gene Wolfe The White Plague by Frank Herbert
1983
	Against Infinity by Gregory Benford Forty Thousand In Gehenna by C. J. Cherryh Helliconia Summer by Brain W. Aldiss His Master’s Voice by Stanislaw Lem Millennium by John Varley Startide Rising by David Brin Tea with the Black Dragon by R. A. MacAvoy The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers The Armageddon Rag by George R. R. Martin The Citadel of the Autarch by Gene Wolfe The Robots of Dawn by Isaac Asimov The Void Captain’s Tale by Norman Spinrad
1984
	Emergence by David R. Palmer Icehenge by Kim Stanley Robinson Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin Neuromancer by William Gibson The Final Encyclopedia by Gordon R. Dickson The Integral Trees by Larry Niven The Peace War by Vernor Vinge The Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany The Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson The Year’s Best Science Fiction edited by Gardner Dozois True Names by Vernor Vinge West of Eden by Harry Harrison
1985
	Ancient of Days by Michael Bishop Blood Music by Greg Bear Brightness Falls from the Air by James Tiptree, Jr. Contact by Carl Sagan Cuckoo’s Egg by C. J. Cherryh Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card Eon by Greg Bear Firewatch by Connie Willis Footfall by Niven and Pournelle Helliconia Winter by Brian W. Aldiss Robots and Empire by Isaac Asimov Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood The Postman by David Brin
1986
	A Door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski Artificial Things by Karen Joy Fowler Burning Chrome by William Gibson Chanur’s Homecoming C. J. Cherryh Count Zero by William Gibson Foundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams Heart of the Comet by Brin and Benford Marooned in Realtime by Vernor Vinge Mirrorshades edited by Bruce Sterling Robot Dreams by Isaac Asimov Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold Soldier of the Mist by Gene Wolfe Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card The Falling Woman by Pat Murphy The Hercules Text by Jack McDevitt The Ragged Astronauts by Bob Shaw The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold This Is the Way the World Ends by James Marrow
1987
	A Mask for the General by Lisa Goldstein Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks Dawn by Octavia E. Butler Great Sky River by Gregory Benford Life During Wartime by Lucius Shepard Lincoln’s Dreams by Connie Willis Mindplayers by Pat Cadigan Replay by Ken Grimwood Sphere by Michael Crichton The Essential Ellison by Harlan Ellison The Forge of God by Greg Bear The Jaguar Hunter by Lucius Shepard The Uplift War by David Brin The Urth of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe Vacuum Flowers by Michael Swanwick When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger
1988
	Becoming Alien by Rebecca Ore Cyteen by C. J. Cherryh Deserted Cities of the Heart by Lewis Shiner Desolation Road by Ian McDonald Eternity by Greg Bear Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson Prelude to Foundation by Isaac Asimov The Gate to Women’s Country by Sheri S. Tepper The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson The Healer’s War by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks Wetware by Rudy Rucker
1989
	A Wall Around Eden by Joan Slonczewski Full Spectrum edited by Aronica and McCarthy Good News From Outer Space by John Kessel Grass by Sheri S. Tepper Hyperion by Dan Simmons Orbital Decay by Allen Steele Patterns by Pat Cadigan Phases of Gravity by Dan  Simmons Rimrunners by C. J. Cherryh The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson The Child Garden by Geoff Ryman

JWH – 4/13/13

The Defining Science Fiction Books of the 1970s

What started as a review of American Science Fiction: The Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s, has put me on a quest to organize my memories of the great science fiction books, decade by decade, and year by year.  Back in the mid-90s I created The Classics of Science Fiction website.  Then I wrote The Greatest Science Fiction Novels of the 20th Century about the science fiction books that people who don’t read science fiction might know.  I’m preoccupied with how people remember science fiction, well at least the literary form.  Recently I wrote The Defining Science Fiction Books of the 1960s which is getting more hits than usual for my blog, so that makes me think other people are like me – looking back, trying to remember all their favorite science fiction books from childhood.

For those science fiction fans who really love reading about the great books of science fiction, I highly recommend reading Anatomy of Wonder edited by Neil Barron, now in it’s 5th edition.  It’s a very expensive book, designed for library reference, so it’s cheaper to get used copies of the older editions.  Go to the Amazon link I provided with the title and click on Look Inside to see what it’s like.  Neil Barron and his contributors are doing what I’m doing here, but exhaustively, scholarly, and providing a summary description for each book.  If you really love science fiction and want to read about the best books from the past, this book is for you.   You can get used copies of older editions for less than $5 at Abebooks.com.  Editions were 1976, 1981, 1987, 1995, 2004.  Aim for the latest edition you can afford.  I hope a 6th edition comes out soon.

Doing the research for these essays has been great fun.  A test of my memory.  It’s also shown me how science fiction has aged, and changed over time.  The science fiction of the 1970s seems more grownup than the 1960s and 1950s, less about space adventure and more about people and their problems.  Part of that change came about because of Terry Carr and his Ace Science Fiction Specials (1968-1990), and the impact of The New Wave on science fiction.  Science fiction also seemed to be polarizing over politics of the 1970s – see “New Maps of Science Fiction” by William Sims Bainbridge and Murray M. Dalziel from the Analog Yearbook, 1977.  For the article they polled 130 readers to get a list of the popular SF writers of the 1970s.

It you study this list and then look at my long list below you’ll notice that there are many new authors breaking out in the 1970s, especially women writers.  Of the 27 writers making their popularity poll, only two are women, Ursula K. Le Guin and Anne McCaffrey.  My 1970s long list adds Octavia Butler, Suzy McKee Charnas, C. J. Cherryh, Vonda N. McIntyre, Marge Piercy, Joanna Russ, Alice Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.), and Kate Wilhelm.

I create two lists for these remembrances of science fictional past.  The first is a short list of the most famous titles, the science fiction books probably most remembered today, especially by current fans, and maybe famous enough to be known by people outside of the genre.  The second, the long list, are the books that hardcore science fiction fans should fondly remember.

The Best Remembered Science Fiction Books of the 1970s

• Ringworld by Larry Niven (1970)
• Time and Again by Jack Finney (1970)
• The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin (1971)
• The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov (1972)
• Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke (1973)
• The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin (1974)
• The Mote In God’s Eye by Niven and Pournelle (1974)
• The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (1975)
• A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick (1977)
• Gateway by Frederik Pohl (1978)
• Kindred by Octavia Butler (1979)
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979)

I believe these 1970s science fiction books are more often reprinted, more often talked about by young readers I meet, more often discussed in the book club, and more often written about, but I can’t prove it – just my intuition.  I expect every science fiction fan who lived through the 1970s will want to argue with me.  None of the books I picked for the short or long list are my top favorite SF books of all time.  I like them, but none of my all-time favorite science fiction books came out in the 1970s.  I’ve read many of the books from the long list, and most are entertaining, but none of them have stuck in my heart.  For some reason, since the turn of the century, I’ve been experiencing a reading renaissance, and I’ve been discovering new books again that I love like I did when I was a teen – but that’s another essay.  They do say getting old leads to a second childhood.

Like I said in the original essay about the 1950s, it’s the books we read starting at age 12, and following few years, that imprint on our souls.  The 1970s represents my twenties, and I was branching away from science fiction by then.  I’m quite sure there are fans who were teens in the the 1970s that found many of these books wonderful and are lifetime favorites for them.  But also remember, the 1970s was when Star Trek fans started swarming into the genre, and then Star Wars hit.  After that science fiction conventions were more about media science fiction than literary science fiction.

The Best Science Fiction Books of the 1970s for Hardcore Fans

1970
	A Maze of Death by Philip K. Dick After Things Fell Apart by Ron Goulart And Chaos Died by Joanna Russ Downward to the Earth by Robert Silverberg I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein Nine Hundred Grandmothers by R. A. Lafferty Ringworld by Larry Niven Tau Zero by Poul Anderson The Atrocity Exhibition by J. G. Ballard The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, edited by Robert Silverberg The Steel Crocodile/The Electric Crocodile by D. G. Compton The Year of the Quiet Sun by Wilson Tucker Time and Again by Jack Finney Tower of Glass by Robert Silverberg Whipping Star by Frank Herbert
1971
	A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg Alone Against Tomorrow by Harlan Ellison Chronopolis and Other Stories by J. G. Ballard Dinosaur Beach by Keith Laumer Dragonquest Anne McCaffrey Driftglass by Samuel R. Delany Furthest by Suzette Haden Elgin Half Past Human by T. J. Bass Jack of Shadows by Roger Zelazny Moderan by David Bunch Son of Man by Robert Silverberg Starlight by Hal Clement The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth and Other Stories by Roger Zelazny The Hugo Award Winners, Volume Two edited by Isaac Asimov The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin The World Inside by Robert Silverberg To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer Vermillion Sands by J. G. Ballard
1972
	334 by Thomas M. Disch A Choice of Gods by Clifford Simak Again, Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison Beyond Apollo by Barry N. Malzberg Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two edited by Robert Silverberg The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad The Listeners by James Gunn The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner What Entropy Means to Me by George Alec Effinger When Harlie Was One by David Gerrold
1973
	Frankenstein Unbound by Brian W. Aldiss Memoirs Found in a Bathtub by Stanislaw Lem Protector by Larry Niven Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke The Embedding by Ian Watson The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein
1974
	Before the Golden Age edited  by Isaac Asimov Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick Icerigger by Alan Dean Foster The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe/The Unsleeping Eye by D. G. Compton The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin The Godwhale by T. J. Bass The Mote in God’s Eye by Niven & Pournelle Walk to the End of the World by Suzy McKee Charnas
1975
	Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach Norstrillia by Cordwainer Smith The Computer Connection by Alfred Bester The Deep by John Crowley The Female Man by Joanna Russ The Forever War by Joe Haldeman The Infinity Box by Kate Wilhelm The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner The Wind’s Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. Le Guin Women of Wonder edited by Pamela Sargent
1976
	Man Plus by Frederik Pohl Science Fiction of the Thirties edited by Damon Knight Ten Thousand Light-Years From Home by James Tiptree, Jr. The Clewiston Test by Kate Wilhelm The Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin Triton by Samuel R. Delany Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm
1977
	A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick All My Sins Remembered by Joe Haldeman Gateway by Frederik Pohl In the Ocean of Night by Gregory Benford Inherit the Stars by James P. Hogan Lucifer’s Hammer by Niven and Pournelle Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky The Ophiuchi Hotline by John Varley The Road To Science Fiction edited by James Gunn
1978
	Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre The Faded Sun: Kesrith by C. J. Cherryh The Persistence of Vision by John Varley
1979
	Engine Summer by John Crowley Kindred by Octavia Butler Juniper Time by Kate Wilhelm On the Wings of Song by Thomas Disch Tales of Pirx the Pilot by Stanislaw Lem The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams The Instrumentality of Mankind by Cordwainer Smith Titan by John Varley

JWH – 4/9/13

The Defining Science Fiction Books of the 1960s

After completing The Defining Science Fiction Books of the 1950s, I decided to push ahead into the 1960s.  Going through the databases and assembling the list was a shock to my memory.  I remember the 1960s being a tremendous decade for science fiction, and it was in volume, but I just don’t know how many of the books I found to list here are actual classics.  I’ve reread far fewer of these titles than I did for the books from the 1950s, so I’m going more from distant memory than recent.  And I padded the list with more books I remember reading about but haven’t read.  I included them because they still sound good enough to track down in 2013.  Many of these books listed below are ones I discovered researching the Classics of Science Fiction website, so they stick in my mind.

Also, I’m doubting the completeness of my databases.  I had to consult several sources to find many of the titles I “remembered.”  If I had to actually make up this list from cold memory it would be far shorter.  I needed tools like the Internet Science Fiction Database to trigger buried recollections.

In the 1960s I loved shopping for books so much that I would visit bookstores two or three times a week.  Towards the end of the decade I learned how to go to flea market and garage sales and offer to buy whole boxes of paperbacks cheap.  I’d then take them to 2 for 1 trade in stores.  I got to know the science fiction sections of several used bookshops in Miami.  So looking for cover art for this list was a trip down memory lane.

I’d often read a book a day back then.  Which is probably why I don’t remember these books so well – I read fast, and consumed science fiction in mass quantities.   Some do stand out, especially the titles I’ve reread over the years.  In terms of ideas, the 1960s were rich in original content.  Most of the 1950s was spent reprinting the classic stories of the 1930s and 1940s pulp area.  This still happened, but less often.  Heinlein’s great short novel Orphans in the Sky from 1963, is really two novellas from the early 1940s, “Universe” and “Common Sense.”  Thus it’s very hard to think of Orphans of the Sky as a classic 1960s novel.

The original essay I wrote about the 1950s was inspired by the Library of America’s collection of 1950s science fiction.  I assume Library of America will published a collection for the 1960s, and then the 1970s.  After collecting all the most memorable titles from the 1960s that I could find, favorites just don’t jump out at me like they did for the 1950s.  However, I would say this short list of books are the standout science fiction books of the 1960s, the ones most remembered by people who don’t normally read science fiction.  These are the titles I think will be remembered by literary scholars, if they’re willing to read science fiction.

• A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
• Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
• The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
• Dune by Frank Herbert
• Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
• The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
• Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
• Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

A Canticle for Leibowitz is tricky, it was copyright 1959, but published in 1960.  I personally think Stand on Zanzibar is a great SF novel of the 1960s, but it’s quickly becoming forgotten.  When it comes down to the nitty-gritty I’d say Stranger in a Stranger Land and Dune are the quintessential novels of the 1960s.  They aren’t my favorites, but I think they are the ones remembered by the most people.

Here’s the larger list I worked from, the titles that hard core science fiction fans should easily remember and love.  These are the books that I either read, read about, won awards, or are often talked about at the Classics of Science Fiction Book Club.  Compiling this list makes me want to reread a lot of books.

1960
	A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Assignment in Eternity by Robert A. Heinlein Deathworld by Harry Harrison Drunkard’s Walk by Frederik Pohl Eight Keys to Eden by Mark Clifton Flesh by Philip Jose Farmer Galaxies Like Grains of Sand by Brain A. Aldiss Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys The Big Time by Fritz Leiber The High Crusade by Poul Anderson The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley The Tomorrow People by Judith Merril To the Tombaugh Station by Wilson Tucker Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon
1961
	A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke Dark Universe by Daniel F. Galouye Pilgrimage: The Book of the People by Zenna Henderson Solaris by Stanislaw Lem Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein The Joy Makers by James E. Gunn The Lovers by Philip Jose Farmer The Rim of Space by A. Bertram Chandler The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison Time is the Simplest Thing by Clifford D. Simak
1962
	A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess A for Andromeda by Hoyle & Elliot A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle Hothouse/The Long Afternoon of Earth by Brian W. Aldiss Island by Aldous Huxley Journey Beyond Tomorrow by Robert Sheckley Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper R is for Rocket by Ray Bradbury The Drowned World by J. G. Ballard The Eleventh Commandment by Lester del Rey The Hugo Winners edited by Isaac Asimov The Jewels of Aptor by Samuel R. Delany The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick The Worlds of the Imperium by Keith Laumer
1963
	All the Colors of Darkness by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Dolphin Island by Arthur C. Clarke Envoy to New Worlds by Keith Laumer Orphans of the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein Passport To Eternity by J. G. Ballard Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle Podkayne of Mars by Robert A. Heinlein Star Surgeon by James White The Dragon Masters by Jack Vance The Game Players of Titan by Philip K. Dick The Man Who Fell To Earth by Walter Tevis Way Station by Clifford D. Simak You Will Never Be The Same by Cordwainer Smith
1964
	Clans of the Alphane Moon by Philip K. Dick Davy by Edgar Pangborn Farmham’s Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein Greybeard by Brian W. Aldiss Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick The Penultimate Truth by Philip K. Dick The Planet Buyer by Cordwainer Smith The Reefs of Space by Williamson & Pohl The Star King by Jack Vance The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber The Whole Man by John Brunner
1965
	A Plague of Pythons by Frederik Pohl All Flesh is Grass by Clifford Simak Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb by Philip K. Dick Dune by Frank Herbert Nova Express by William Burroughs The Genocides by Thomas M. Disch The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick The Squares of the City by John Brunner
1966
	Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany Colossus by D. F. Jones Earthblood by Laumer and Brown Empire Star by Samuel R. Delany Fantastic Voyage by Isaac Asimov Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison Mindswap by Robert Sheckley Now Wait for Last Year by Philip K. Dick Orbit 1 edited by Damon Knight Planet of Exile by Ursula K. Le Guin Rocannon’s World by Ursula K. Le Guin The Crystal World by J. G. Ballard The Dream Master by Roger Zelazny The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein The Solarians by Norman Spinrad The Watch Below by James White The Witches of Karres by James Schmitz This Immortal by Roger Zelazny
1967
	Berserker by Fred Saberhagen Chthon by Piers Anthony Four for Tomorrow by Roger Zelazny Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny Restoree by Anne McCaffrey Soldier, Ask Not by Gordon R. Dickson The Butterfly Kid by Chester Anderson The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany The Past Through Tomorrow by Robert A. Heinlein Thorns by Robert Silverberg
1968
	2001: A Space Odyssey Arthur C. Clarke A Specter is Haunter Texas by Fritz Leiber A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch Chocky John Wyndham Dimension of Miracles by Robert Sheckley Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey Hawksbill Station by Robert Silverberg Neutron Star by Larry Niven Nova by Samuel R. Delany Of Men and Monsters by William Tenn Omnivore by Piers Anthony Past Master by R. A. Lafferty Pavane by Keith Roberts Picnic on Paradise by Joanna Russ Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner The Demon Breed by James H. Schmitz The Final Programme by Michael Moorcock The Goblin Reservation by Clifford Simak The Last Starship from Earth by John Boyd The Masks of Time by Robert Silverberg The Reefs of Earth by R. A. Lafferty The Still, Small Voice of Trumpets by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. The Underpeople by Cordwainer Smith
1969
	Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad Galactic Pot-Healer by Philip K. Dick Macroscope by Piers Anthony Nightfall and Other Stories by Isaac Asimov Nightwings by Robert Silverberg Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton The Jagged Orbit by John Brunner The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin The Pollinators of Eden by John Boyd The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey Ubik by Philip K. Dick Up the Line by Robert Silverberg World’s Best Science Fiction 1969 edited by Wollheim & Carr

JWH – 4/7/13

On the Road (2012)–1920, 1922, 1947, 1951, 1957, 1969, 1970, 1971, 2013

The new 2012 film version of On the Road, based on the classic 1957 novel gets only 44% positive rating with critics on Rotten Tomatoes.  Fans like it even less, with just 40% approval.  And I know why and understand their reasons, but it’s not the movie.

I loved the movie, but I’m haunted by the Beats.

I think director Walter Salles and screenwriter Jose Rivera, did an excellent job capturing Jack Kerouac’s novel.  But see, that’s problematic, since the book itself is hard to like, even though it’s considered one of the best American novels of the 20th century by many literary historians, and yes, hated by just as many.  However, On the Road is more than a novel, it’s a legend.  The characters are based on real people.  These people were so fascinating they became characters in many other novels by various Beat writers.  Countless biographies have been written about their beat lives, and over the years films and documentaries have been made trying to capture this very tiny subculture.  We’re not reviewing a movie, we’re reviewing mythology.

The encounter of two men, Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac generated a whole literary movement, the Beat Generation.

On the Road, came out in 1957, but was about Kerouac’s real life of 1947-1949.  It was essentially written by 1951, the year I was born, but tinkered with, and not published until 1957.  That’s a long time ago to most young movie goers today.  If Kerouac had lived he’d be over ninety.  So the 2012 film On the Road, is really a historical flick.  It’s about a bunch of unhappy crazy people who did a lot of drugs and rushed back and forth across the continent several times trying to find happiness, kicks, or just escape from their inner demons, obligations and boredom.

When I first read On the Road in 1969, it felt contemporary because the beats were a whole lot like the hippies, at least superficially.  It took me a while to realize that On the Road was about my father’s generation.  My dad was born in 1920, and Jack Kerouac was born in 1922.  Kerouac died at 47, in October of 1969, and my dad died at 49, in May of 1970.  They both died miserable drunks.  They both smoked a lot of unfiltered Camels.  They both travelled back and forth across America in a restless attempt to find themselves.  They both were failures at marriage and raising kids.  I use Kerouac to understand my uncommunicative father.

When you’re a kid and read On the Road for the first time it’s tremendously exciting.  It’s adventurous.  It’s about hitch-hiking.  It’s about sex and drugs.  It’s about jazz.  Yes, it’s that old, before rock and roll.  After doing a lot of drugs and hitch-hiking trips myself, I saw the book in a different light by 1971.  I reread On the Road every few years, and the older I get, the more I understand the suffering behind the story.

I wonder if the 60% of movie fans, and 56% of critics who watched On the Road are savvy enough to immediately realize that this story is about misery and not glamor?  To be on the road that much, to drink that much, to take that many drugs, to fuck that many people, requires a tortured soul driven by restless, existential pain.

Maybe I love this film because I read the pain in every character on the screen.  This is a great film when you realize it’s not a fun film.  Sure, they quote Kerouac’s famous lines twice in the film

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!”

Kerouac rewrote his life to make it better, to romanticize it, to make it more meaningful, more exciting, but if you read the many biographies about Jack, you know he failed to fool himself.  He knew they were all beat characters.  When he discovered Zen, he hoped to put a spiritual spin on things, and hoped he could find enlightenment in his life, or at least write an enlightened view of it.  He failed.  Alcoholism consumed Kerouac, just like my dad, my dad’s brothers, and their father.  I come from two beat generations.

Everyone is initially seduced by Kerouac romantic spin on his life.  Everyone loves Neal Cassady/Dean Moriarty because he’s so wild and bangs all the chicks, but they forget that ole Dean will abandon you in a Mexico City flophouse when you’re out of your mind with dysentery and have no money, or run off and leave his wife and children to get his kicks making some other woman equally miserable.  Neal was a petty criminal, street hustler, con man and user of people, but all too often people loved him.  And Kerouac knew that.

Whether Sam Riley as Sal Paradise (Jack Kerouac) or Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) are convincing in their roles depends on your image of Jack and Neal.  I loved that the movie didn’t romanticize these two.  I don’t think Kerouac did either in his book if you read it closely, but too many would-be beats and hippies have.  I am reminded of the contrast between the 1968 book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, about Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters and their trip across 1964 American in an old bus named Further, and the recent documentary Magic Trip that used actual film the Pranksters took on the trip.  History and nonfiction don’t match up.   For On the Road, history and fiction don’t match either.  A good writer can make real life a whole lot more glamorous than it is.  I believe Kerouac wanted to chronicle his life without the glamor.

Which brings us back to modern American movie goers, they are incurable romantics.  They hate realism.  They embrace a comic book view of reality.  That’s why I think 60% of them turned their thumbs down for On the Road.  That’s why the film played only one week in my city, and why there was only one other person in the theater when I went.  That’s why they didn’t like a realistic story about a struggling young writer who loves a low-life hustler and makes him the center of his novel, his life, even though time and again, the bastard left him high and dry, and crushed his soul.  Kerouac wrote a lot of books, but only the ones that have Neal in them still matter.  Jack returned to Neal time and again, in life and in books, but without Neal, Jack never could get his life together.  Success didn’t help, and only made it worse.

Neal Cassady was the bus driver for Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, and Cassady brought the King of the Hippies to meet the King of the Beats.  It was a disaster for the old friends.   Jack and Neal are now legendary mythic characters.  Trying to understand the realism of their friendship requires reading book and after book, and now watching movie after movie.

I think if you’re among the people trying to understand the story of Jack and Neal, you must see this film.  Everyone else should be warned.  If you didn’t like it, then you’re lucky, you don’t have a beat soul.  If you love it, you’re among the haunted by the myths of the Beats.

4/4/13

Books That Show Us Reality–The Power of the Red Pill

We live in strange times. 

Science is under attack by the faithful.  Most people prefer fiction over fact.  We know more about the nature of reality than ever before, yet few people want to look reality in the eye.  Everyone claims they want to know the truth, but do they?

It’s like in the movie The Matrix, when Neo is offered the red and blue pill.  Morpheus tells Neo the red pill will show him the truth and the blue pill will return him to forgetfulness.  On this planet, most people take the blue pill.

What if you wanted to take the red pill? 

Naturally, a red pill to reveal the truth does not exist.  But there are read pills, called books, that do.

Up until the middle of the 20th century, an exemplary education involved the knowledge of the great books of the western world.  For the last fifty years we have been rejecting the great books kind of education, but we haven’t substitute a new canon.  A well educated person no longer has to know Greek, Latin and French, or the defining books of the classical world.  Science started in the 17th century, got up to speed in the 19th, and launched into orbit in the 20th. 

Yet few inhabitants of planet Earth embrace scientific thinking.  Fear of oblivion push many into the opium of religion, and most of the rest hide out in escapists fantasies and games.  Science is the only path to the truth, but few follow it.

What we need is a new set of great books, a new canon, whose content will define a well educated person.

I want to create a new definition of education.  Let’s start with a cockroach.  When you go into your kitchen in the middle of the night and turn on the light and see a cockroach run for his life, think about what it knows.  Think about what reality is to a cockroach.  The poor little fella knows nothing of physics, biology, history, mathematics, literature, or even language.  He has no tools to describe or analyze reality.  He’s a tiny little machine with sensors that help him search out food.  He also has a sensor that tells him to run for cover when the light goes on.  He doesn’t know your foot is about to squash his little body.  His awareness of reality is without thoughts.  His potential for education is nil.

Now, lets step up to a border collie.  Her awareness of reality is far richer than the poor cockroach.  We’re not sure if dogs think or have a language, although recently scientists claim that dogs can learn a couple hundred words, but they don’t perceive words like we do.  Our border collie is well adapted to education and can be trained to do all kinds of work and tricks.  She is even eager to learn.  But alas, she knows no more of physics, biology, history, mathematics, literature than our friend the cockroach.

We all approach reality like the blind men caressing separate parts of an elephant and speculating about the whole animal.  Some creatures can perceive more of reality than others.  Educated humans with all our senses are able to see the elephant complete in many dimensions,  even all its component molecule and atoms, and even trace its origin in its evolutionary past.  We see a lot of reality, but far from all – and nothing blocks us from seeing further.

Cosmologists see the largest aspects of reality.  Particle physicists see the smallest parts of reality.  Yet neither see the ultimate largest or smallest.  Our universe is probably one of an infinity of universes, so there is no end to big, and probably there is no end to small either.

Science has turned on the light, and scurrying humans can see it all, from immensely tiny particles to the furthest reaches of the universe, from the Big Bang until now.  Yet most people choose to hide in the cracks of darkness.

On a recent PBS show NOVA, “Earth From Space” they showed a map of the US with a squiggly ling running from New York to Los Angeles to represent the size of the electromagnetic spectrum.  The scientist interviewed explained the visual part of the spectrum we use to see would be about the size of a dime.  We have built new senses to see all of reality, we are way beyond biology.  We are now cyborgs.  But for the average human, there is little knowledge of our true capabilities.

My definition of education is learning to see as much of reality as possible.  Unfortunately, most homo sapiens hide from reality, lost in their fantasies of religion, desires, fictional diversions, games, routines, habits, impulses, etc.  We are closer to the cockroach when we spend so much time pursuing food and sex.  We are like the border collie when we learn to work and earn a living.  But we are the most human when we’re examining the scope of existence.

Now to the great books.  Books are a tool like the telescope, microscope, or interplanetary robot, they let us see further.  If we read the right book, we’ll add details to our personal model of reality. We never see reality directly, but model it in our minds.  Tragically, humans are prone to delusions and fantasies that distort their models of reality.  Think of the wretched conspiracy theorist who builds highly distorted views of reality, or the faithful who shape reality by ancient Bible stories that pander to their fear of oblivion by promising eternal life.

Yes, it’s easier to take the blue pill and forget.  Taking the red pill requires a lot of study and work.

A great education is developing an internal model of reality that closely mimics our external reality.  A great education is learning about all the models of reality that failed.  Plato’s model of reality is abysmally wrong, yet we still study Plato.  Science is a long history of getting it wrong, but it’s cumulative history is a collection of good working models.  The theory of evolution is one of the most successful models of reality ever imagined.  Evolution is now the key tool for understanding how reality works.  Evolution explains change, and reality is constantly changing.

It’s time to get to the nitty gritty of this essay. 

What books are the red pill for showing the truth about reality?  My knowledge and experience is limited, so I can only make a crude guess.  What I’d like to see a collective development of a canon of great science books.   The Scientific Canon needs a small set of introductory books that will illuminate the uninitiated into the world of science.  Then it will need a more extensive list of books for further study.

Coming up with a list of introductory books will be hard.  It won’t be like religion, with The Bible or Quran, where one book will do, science will take many.  And where do we start?  At the beginning with The Big Bang and cosmology, the science of the very big?  But to understand cosmology requires understanding particle physics, which is the study of the very small.  Science really doesn’t make sense without understanding evolution.  It really helps to grasp how unintelligent design, in a random chaotic system, can produce order even when the second law of thermodynamics exists.  Entropy is such a backasswards slippery concept to mentally wrestle.

Developing the Scientific Canon will be hard.  Obviously our school systems are failing at the job, even when they have a captured audience and powerful textbooks.  Can anyone list twelve books that will give the average person a basic grasp of science?  Even with a longer list, like Harold Bloom’s Western Canon list, how well verse in science can a reader become without knowing mathematics?  Is a scientific understanding beyond most people?

• 100 All-Time Greatest Popular Science Books (nicely divides them by various fields of science)
• The Great Pop-Sci Book Project 
• Best Science Books of 2012
• Best Science Books of 2011

Here are some books I’ve been very impressed with, but I can’t claim are the best volumes for the introductory list.

JWH – 2/15/13

Identifying the Greatest Books of All Time

Books, whether novels or nonfiction, are inherently subjective in their appeal, so is it even possible to claim to know the greatest books ever written?  I don’t think any one person can objectively claim any list of books are the best ever written.  However, I think it is possible, by using statistics, and the wisdom of crowds, to identify the books that have had the greatest impact on the most people.

There is a long tradition for critics and scholars to list books they proclaim are great.  This is subjective no matter how well educated the selectors are in literature.  Now, if we take a hundred literary authorities and ask them to list their top 100 books of all time, put those books into a database and then create a list that shows which books were on the most lists, I think we can consider this more objective.  But even still, there is no Platonic ideal form of a great book that exists in reality.  How great is War and Peace if you can’t stand to read it?

That doesn’t stop people like me, life long bookworms addicted to books, to always search for our next fix, hoping for the most intense literary high yet.

Aggregating best of book lists is different from fan polls, although if we poll enough readers, standout titles will emerge.  Critics and scholars have read widely and studied literature, so their opinions count for more, but their opinions aren’t perfect.  Scholars know the older books better, whereas fans know the newer books.

Back in the 1980s I created a meta-list of science fiction books for a fanzine called Lan’s Lantern.  It was simple, I used eight best of lists, to produce a final list that contained books that had been on at least three of the eight lists.  I called the list The Classics of Science Fiction.  In the 1990s I updated the system with more lists, and put it online.  In the early 2000s I got some outside help and expanded the citation lists to 28 best of lists and set the cutoff to seven lists.  You can see the ranked results here.  The top three books had been on 25 of the 28 lists.  I thought that represented a kind of validity.

Ever since then I’ve wanted to build a database for all books, not just science fiction.  Several years back I got a domain name and hosting service and set up the beginnings of such a system, but the database got hacked and I gave up.  Recently I discovered that Shane Sherman has developed a database system at The Greatest Books of All Time that is similar to my dream book site.  He covers fiction and nonfiction and works with 43 best of lists.  However, Shane uses a different method for creating his final rankings by selective weighing of lists.  Yet another approach to identifying the great books.

Shane’s site is quite wonderful.  It’s simple and elegant.  Create an account or sign in with Twitter, and then start scanning the lists.  You can check the books you’ve read and the ones you want to read and the site will remember.  If you’re a book lover, you’ll enjoy going through the various lists, both the 43 best of lists and Shane’s two generated lists:  Fiction and Nonfiction.  I love best of lists.  I collect books recommending the best books of all time.  Over the years I’ve been teaching myself about the history of books.  When I make new friends I love talking to them about their favorite books.  I find the fame of books fascinating.

Best of book lists can be created from fan polls, critic lists, scholars lists, awards lists, library lists, and other criteria, such as whether a novel has been made into a movie, or was an all time best seller.  Popularity is important, but it’s not the only factor.  Critics and scholars are far more knowledgeable about the history of books than normal fans, but if the fan polls are large enough, they can be effective.  Various book awards, Pulitzer, Booker, Newberry, etc., have their own systems for selecting books, that try to go beyond the subjective, but the award judges have limitations too.  No one person can know about even a tiny fraction of published books.

If one list can’t be perfect, what about aggregating many?  Combining lists can generate interesting results.  For example, I’ll use four lists.

Shane Sherman’s top dozen books are:

1. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
2. Ulysses by James Joyce
3. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
4. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
5. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. 1984 by George Orwell
7. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
8. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
9. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
10. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
11. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
12. Middlemarch by George Eliot

If you look at the 43 lists at Shane’s site you will be hard press to find another one that has the same top 12 novels.  One that does come close is The Novel 100: A Ranking of Greatest Novels of All Time by David Burt.  From what I can tell, Burt doesn’t use a system but just claims to be an expert.  His top 12 are:

1. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
2. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
3. Ulysses by James Joyce
4. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
6. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
7. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
8. Middlemarch by George Eliot
9. The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
10. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
11. Emma by Jane Austen
12. Bleak House by Charles Dickens

The overlap suggests that Burt is a very savvy literary scholar because he comes very close to the results generated by Shane’s system.

J. Peder Zane found another way to use the wisdom of crowds by asking 125 writers to submit their favorite 10 books and then built a database to see which books were recommended the most.   The list was called The Top Ten.  Using a point system, these 12 books came in at the top:

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
2. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
6. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
7. Middlemarch by George Eliot
8. The Stories of Anton Chekhov
9. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
10. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
11. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
12. Ulysses by James Joyce

As you can see, many of the same titles are showing up over and over again.  Ulysses, War and Peace, In Search of Lost Time and Madame Bovary were on all three of these lists.

Now compare this to a large fan poll.  The BBC got over 750,000 readers to vote on their favorites, these were their top 12:

1. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
8. 1984 by George Orwell
9. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights by Emile Bronte

The British are partial to British authors, with only two Americans making it to the top dozen, and no non-English writers in this portion of the list.  War and Peace did make it to the #20 spot, and Ulysses came in at #78.  Many of the others titles from the other three list did show up within the BBC Big Read top 100, so even average bookworms can love stogy literary classics, just not as much as fun books like Harry Potter.

If we could get one million bookworms from all over the world, what would that list look like?  What if there was a web site that allowed every bookworm in the world to submit their top ten favorite books, what might the overlap list look like?  If a hundred million Chinese readers participated, what Chinese books would we see?  It’s interesting that in the first three lists above, created by English speakers that so many non-English books made the list, but the western world does dominate.

The Top 100 Works in World Literature attempts to correct the western centric view.  You’ll have to visit the site to see the list, because it’s alphabetical, so there’s no top 12 to show and compare.  However, many of the books from the top three list above are on this top 100 list too.

There are a good many best books lists out there.  Shane has gathered 43.  I wonder what using 100, or 500 such lists would show?  If we could survey all the schools, colleges and universities around the world for what books are taught each year, what would that list look like?  What if we could see the long term sales figures for books, to see which books sell the most year after year?  And what books have inspired the most movies, plays and television productions?  Which books have been written about the most?  Which books have been quoted the most?

If somehow we could put all this information in one giant database, and develop a point system that weighs their different values, I think we’d come up with a very valid list of top books.  Of course, such a list would then cause a recursive effect.  If all readers felt certain books were not to be missed, wouldn’t that further reinforce their success?  Isn’t such an effect already happening with English majors?

If a novel came out in 2013 that was more powerful than anything written by Tolstoy or Joyce, how long would it take to be recognized by this statistical system?  Meta list statistical systems favors older books with momentum.  Only well trained scholars and critics could spot a new contender quickly.

Other Aggregate Lists

• A List of Books – combines 13 best of lists to list 623 books
• Best Selling Books – combines 4 bestseller lists into one
• Newsweek’s Top 100 Books – Newsweek gathered 10 top book lists (LibraryThing)
• SFFMeta 

Fan Polls

• Best Books Ever – Favorite books by Goodreads members
• 250 Most Reviewed Books at LibraryThing
• Top 100 Sci-Fi Books
• Top SF 100 Novels by ISFDB users

Scholar/Critic/Editor/Reviewer Lists

• The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written
• 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (LibraryThing)
• Harenberg Buch der 1000 Bücher – a 1000 great books from around the world (LibraryThing)
• 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read – The Guardian
• 501 Must Read Books (LibraryThing)
• Philip Ward’s Lifetime Reading Plan – 1 book a month for 50 years
• 200 Best English Language Novels Since 1950 (LibraryThing)
• New York Times Best Books of the Year (1968-2011)

JWH – 2/12/13

Reading Synergy

Sometimes I luck out and read two great books about different subjects that reinforce each other’s ideas and make each book more powerful.  Earlier this month I read Half The Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.  Now I’m reading The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond, about comparing modern society to human societies of the past.  Jared Diamond makes a case that human behavior is different under state governments than how we lived under pre-state societies.  Diamond describes life and psychology in hunter and gather cultures, as well a chiefdoms and tribal societies.  It might surprise you that there is much in the two books that overlap, but then any two books that chronicles so many cultures around the world are bound to overlap.

Half the Sky is introduced by saying 60-100 million women are missing from the current population.  Kristof and WuDunn point out that gender selected abortion, infanticide, the favoring of male children to receive medical care over females, enslavement, torture and other horrible social practices explain the missing females from the world’s population.

Jared Diamond also describes how pre-state cultures are hard on females.  His book explains why these cultures practice infanticide and gender selected abortions when they have access to technology.  What Diamond essentially says is our modern way of life is new and that humans lived much differently for millions of years before the advent of state controlled governments.

Most traditional cultures, as Diamond calls them, fought constant wars over women, food, land and natural resources.  Societies were male dominated and women were possessions.  Polygamy was the common marriage arrangement which inherently treats women unfairly.

If you blend the two books together you see that the world is going through a transformation.   We’re shifting from traditional cultures to state cultures which over time has abolished slavery and moved towards monogamy and fairer treatment of women.

Kristof and WuDunn make a case that if we change how we treat women, we’ll change how societies operate, and thus reduce terrorism and war, and increase economic activity and freedom for all individuals.  Diamond indirectly says states protects individuals and frees them from constant warring and violence, which is mainly caused by males seeking personal revenge and retribution.  He also points out the ownership of women causes much of the violence in traditional societies.

There is a synergy between that and the TV show I’m watching on DVD, Hatfields & McCoys.  The two feuding families were more like two feuding tribes.  I find further reading synergy between the above and the book Empire of the Summer Moon by S. C. Gwynne describing the history of the Comanche Indians, and The Old Testament.  The Old Testament is a history of the twelve tribes of Israel conquering the Canaanites, and later about the twelve tribes of Israel trying to survive the onslaught to two state run societies, The Babylonians and The Romans. Empire of the Summer Moon is about the Comanches fighting the onslaught of the United States of America, another state run society.

For most of human history we live and fought each other as small groups.  The standard operating procedure was kill your enemy, enslave the women, and adopt the children.  The Old Testament illustrates this perfectly.  Sometimes God told the Israelites to kill everything that walks and crawls when they invade a village, and sometimes God told them to kill only them men and keep the women and children.  The tribes of Israel acted no different from the Comanches.  Whether they were as cruel in their torture was not noted in The Bible, but I expect it was pretty much like what we saw between the Hutu and the Tutsi.

The upshot of all these books is individual freedom, peace, gender equality, the semblance of justice comes from state run governments.  If we don’t want tribal societies like the Taliban or Al-Qaeda then we have to promote strong central governments.

Kristof and WuDunn don’t go into this directly.  They just advocate uplifting women where we can, but what that really means if Jared Diamond is right, is we have to eliminate old traditional ways, which is a kind of cultural imperialism.  Diamond is very fond of traditional societies and thinks we can learn from them, and that might be true, but he knows we can’t maintain all the old ways.  This is best illustrated in his introduction when he compares 1961 New Guinea people to 2013 New Guinea people.  The World Until Yesterday is an extremely important book.

In a pre-state society, safety is living very close to your tribe and your tribal alliances.  It is extremely unsafe to venture far and meet strangers.  Nearly all strangers are considered enemies.   If you are alone and meet a group of strangers expect to flee or die.  If you are with your friends and find strangers in a smaller number, expect to kill.  This is the basis for our xenophobia.  It worked the same for the Hatfields and the McCoys.

In a state society we learn to trust strangers.  We can safely travel the world as long as we don’t venture into traditional societies.  When you go to France you don’t expect the Frenchmen to kill you.  That won’t be true in areas where people still live by traditional ways.

Kristof and WuDunn inadvertently make the case that lingering traditional societies are killing off women, or cruelly oppressing them, and that we need to spread strong governments into traditional societies.  What they explicitly advocate is finding gentle ways of changing social customs in traditional societies to be more enlightened about women.   If you read Empire of the Summer Moon you’ll see how 19th century people wanted to gently change the Comanche.  It didn’t work as planned.  I doubt changing the Taliban will be any more of a success.

Strangely enough, the real vector of change is television and the internet.  Knowledge is homogenizing.  Citizens of traditional cultures resent being forced to change.  Practices like infanticide and female genital mutilation are natural, if not holy and good to them.  It is insulting to these people to tell them their ways of doing things are evil and grotesque.  But if they are given a choice they sometimes choose to change on their own.  Television and the internet help them see their choices.  Kristof and WuDunn say helping women will cause positives changes too.  That’s a great hypothesis to test.

I highly recommend reading Half the Sky, The World Until Yesterday and Empire of the Summer Moon together for the strong synergy of ideas.  All too often we think our way of doing things is the right way, and everyone else’s way is wrong.  Many people advocate cultural relativism, but I don’t.  I believe individuals are more important than cultures.  There is no superior culture, but I advocate the maximum protection of the individual with the goal of giving everyone the most freedom possible.  That avoids the which culture is better issue.  Of course, individual freedoms tend to homogenize societies because it does away with violence, gender bias, slavery, polygamy,  and all kinds of other culture beliefs that tend to color individual cultures.

JWH – 1/28/13

Confessions of a Crap Artist by Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick is probably one of the most famous science fiction writers to ever live, but few people remember his name.  At least ten of his stories have been made into motion pictures, but few people who have seen those films took the time to read the stories the films were based on.  Philip K. Dick was the first science fiction author to be published by Library of America, which seeks to issue the best American writers in uniform, durable and authoritative editions.  But when I bring up the name Philip K. Dick among my bookworm friends, most ask, who? 

Why isn’t PKD more famous?  The easy answer is writers seldom become famous, even though most writers hope for literary immortality.

Movie stars, music stars, sports stars become household names with the citizens of our pop culture, but few writers do, and especially not science fiction writers. Philip K. Dick knew this back in the 1950s when he began writing.  He wanted to be more than just a science fiction writer selling stories to pulp magazines for a half cent a word.

How do writers become famous?  Write an unforgettable novel!  What’s the formula for doing that?  Did Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott know that formula when they wrote Pride and Prejudice, A Christmas Carol and Little Women, stories so famous they get a new film adaptation every decade or two?  Philip K. Dick’s success with getting filmed should have made him more famous, but it hasn’t.

Fame is of little value itself, other than to draw attention to artistic work that might be worthy of our attention.  That’s what all artists really want, to create something worthy of fame.  Philip K. Dick didn’t figure his pulp writing was worthy of literary fame, so he wrote a series of mainstream novels in the 1950s hoping to prove his writing ability at observing real life in Marin County, California.  Only one of those novels was even published during his lifetime, Confessions of a Crap Artist.  Phil’s fame rest entirely on his science fiction, and among science fiction fans, PKD had the reputation for being weird even among the denizens of the geeky, nerdy world of science fiction fandom.  I think that’s a shame because Confessions of a Crap Artist is probably his best and most sane book.

Here I am claiming that one of a minor writer’s least famous books is his best.  How can that be?  I’m claiming that Confessions of a Crap Artist is as least as good as Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, another book about marital conflict I’ve recently read.  And although I admired Freedom a good bit, I think Dick reveals better writing techniques for getting inside his characters’ heads than Franzen.  Freedom is more contemporary, sophisticated, and larger in scope, and thus more suited to modern readers, but my life resonates with Confessions of a Crap Artist, so I loved it more.

To me, the goal of literary novels, as oppose to genre novels, is to observe a place and time, and get into the heads of people to chronicle their emotion conflicts and growth.  Most bookworms prefer made up fictional worlds that have complicated plots and exciting characters that offer a thrill ride for their readers.  Often genre fans find literary novels to be about nothing in particular, and fans of genre novels, even fans of Philip K. Dick’s science fiction novels, may find Confessions of a Crap Artist boring. 

Confessions of a Crap Artist is about Fay and Charley Hume’s marriage falling about and how it’s observed by Fay’s brother. Jack Isidore, a rather oddball child man in his thirties who sees the world in a peculiar fashion.   Jack is a science fiction fan, flying saucer nut, believer in crackpot ideas, thinks the world is hollow,  that Mu and Atlantis existed, that people can receive telegraphic messages.  He think fiction offers just as much scientific evidence about reality as nonfiction.  Charley Hume calls Jack a crap artist for all his weird ideas.  Jack Isidore’s extremely literal view of reality, and his poor social skills makes me wonder if Dick had known someone with Asperger’s.  That should appeal to modern readers.  There are end of the world cults and mad shooters in this story too, that might also appeal to modern readers.  There’s a lot to 1959 that’s very much like 2013, and that might be a selling point too.

So why should you read this book?  If publishers didn’t want to publish Confessions of a Crap Artist when Dick wrote it back in 1959, why should you want to read it now?  Internet Science Fiction Database shows it’s had a dozen editions from 1975-2012.  Now that’s interesting.  And that’s not even counting the audiobook edition I just listened to or foreign editions with alternate titles.  What’s going on here?  I’ve heard that 99% of all books never have a second printing, much less a second edition.  Could Confessions of a Crap Artist be a minor underground classic?

I first read Confessions of a Crap Artist when it came out back in the mid-seventies, and was very impressed then.  I read a couple more of PKD’s mainstream novels and thought they captured the 1950s wonderfully, but then I forgot about them.  Recently many of PKD’s novels have been getting new uniform editions in book, ebook and audiobook formats and I bought several on sale from Audible.com.  I started listening to Confessions of a Crap Artist just before New Year and was mesmerized by the writing.  Peter Berkrot narration for the audiobook perfectly captured the first person inner thoughts of the four main characters, Jack Isidore, his sister Fay, her husband Charley, and Fay’s lover Nat Anteil.

The book also captured many wonderful details that I remember about the 1950s.

Why remember the year 1959?   You could read 1959: The Year Everything Changed by Fred Kaplan, a book I’ve read twice because it’s so fascinating.  You could read some of the books that came out in 1959 to try and capture the feel of that year, but if you look at the list I linked to at Wikipedia, many of the books that came out that year weren’t about 1959, they were science fiction books about the future, like Starship Troopers or The Sirens of Titan, or they were best sellers like Psycho and Goldfinger, which I hope aren’t the real 1959, or books like The Tin Drum or Hawaii, which are histories of earlier times.

I remember 1959, but just barely.  I was 7 until November 25th, when I turned 8.  I was living in New Jersey at the time.  But over in California, Philip K. Dick was living in Marin County, and he wrote a book about life in his place and time that captures 1959 better than anything I’ve ever read before.  So why would a science fiction writer back in 1959 want to write about suburban life?  Well, Philip K. Dick told his publisher that he was quitting science fiction to write mainstream novels.  He wrote several novels before giving up, and returned to writing science fiction.  When he did, he wrote is science fiction masterpiece, The Man in the High Castle, which won a Hugo Award.  I’m thinking 1959-1960 was a peak creative period for PKD.

So you might be wondering by now, why I would be trying to convince you to read a book that no publisher wanted when it was written, and was only published by a small press just seven years before the writer died in 1982, and is over 50 years old.  Shouldn’t it be lame and dated?  For some reason Confessions of a Crap Artist amazed me.  It has a 3.63 average rating over that GoodReads, so not everyone is impressed.

Why am I so impressed and others aren’t?  I hate to encourage you to go buy a book and that you read and think, “What is that Harris talking about?  This book stinks!”

I’ve been reading and rereading books by Philip K. Dick most of my life.  I’ve read biographies about him, read countless articles and interviews about and with him, listened to tapes of his conversations and I even visited his gravesite.   I now think Confessions of a Crap Artist is Philip K. Dick’s best book.  First published in 1975, but written in 1959, and in late 2012 appeared on audio from Brilliance Audio, running 8 hours and 13 minutes.

 

This still doesn’t answer:  Why remember the year 1959?  I’m not talking about nostalgia.  When we read Pride and Prejudice, are we learning about 1813?  When we read The Great Gatsby are we exploring 1925?  When we read The New Testament, are we time traveling back to 70 AD?  Yes and no.  A photograph or film of 1925 or 1959 is more revealing of what reality was like than a novel or even a nonfiction book.  Books give us words and ideas from a writer long ago.  So Confessions of a Crap Artist is really a tour of the mind of Philip K. Dick in 1959.  PKD was a certain kind of reporter about a very specific place and time.

Now I’ve mentioned before Dick was a weird guy.  He has a reputation for being weird, but Confessions of a Crap Artist is vivid, exact and very sane.  It’s a sane book about how everyone is crazy to one degree or another.  At first you think Jack Isidore is the only Joker in the deck, but as you read on, and get into the heads of the characters, you realize there are no normal people in this story.  By the time you finish the book you might be thinking there are no normal people in this world.

This is the second time I’ve “read” Confessions of a Crap Artist, or more precisely, I listened to it this time, and the narrator Peter Berkrot made it come alive in a vivid dramatic reading that caught the four principal characters perfectly.  Confessions of a Crap Artist is told through four first person accounts in a round robin order, so the reader feels like they’re inside the heads of Jack Isidore, his sister Fay Hume, her husband Charley, and Fay’s lover Nat Anteil.  This works much better on audio I think, especially with Peter Berkrot’s reading, because you actually feel the different personalities.  PKD did a fantastic job of thinking in different POVs.

Philip K. Dick is famous for writing science fiction, but Confessions of a Crap Artist isn’t science fiction.  To the public outside of the science fiction community, Philip K. Dick is known for several movies based on his novels:  Blade Runner, Total Recall, Screamers, Minority Report, Impostor, Paycheck, A Scanner Darkly, Radio Free Albemuth and The Adjustment Bureau.  Confessions of a Crap Artist was filmed in France in 1992 as Confessions d’un Barjo.  It’s not available on Netflix and is out of print at Amazon, but some used VHS copies are available.

Charlie Hume calls his brother-in-law a crap artist because Jack Isidore collects facts about the world that most people consider nutty, stupid or insane.  Jack looks to his science fiction magazines for scientific validation of reality.  He’s involved with flying saucer cults, and hangs out with people who channel past lives and believes higher beings are preparing the end of the world for Earth.

I remember my uncles talking about Bridey Murphy, George Adamski, Edgar Cayce, and other writers who used to pray on crap artists of the 1950s.  I thought my uncles were nuts.  Most people think the 1960s was when times got wild, but the real 1950s wasn’t Leave It To Beaver or Father Knows Best, it was much closer to The Twilight Zone.

Of course, I was a science fiction fan back then, and that was considered pretty nutty too.  Another thing I remember from the late 1950s and early 1960s, was how everyone wanted to go to a psychiatrist.  Fay Hume goes to her analyst three times a week and brags about it.  Fay does not work, takes care of two little girls, but uses her charm, good looks, and manipulative ways, to get ahead.  On the outside Fay is a model wife, community organizer, and charming.  Charley, her husband thinks she’s a psychopath.  Nat, her lover thinks of her as childish and willful, but totally alluring.  Jack, her brother sees Fay in a particular strange analytical way.

Charley Hume was like a lot of men I remember from back then, he was obsessed about getting ahead, owning a big car and house, and having a beautiful wife and kids to show off.   Think Don Draper from Mad Men.  Finally, Nat Anteil, is the young college kid who could have been a beatnik.  He worked part time, him and his wife rode bikes, wore jeans, and wanted to be intellectuals.  In a few years they would become hippies probably.  Confessions of a Crap Artist reveals itself as an embryo of the 1960s.  The 1960s wasn’t that radically different from the 1950s if you knew where to look for the seeds of the sixties.

On the Road, which came out in 1957 has a reputation for being the bible of the Beats, and people remember it as one of the defining books about the 1950s.  But it was really about the 1940s.  Ditto for A Catcher in the Rye, another 1950s classics.  I think Confessions of a Crap Artist is a detail painting of 1959.

Maybe given enough time Philip K. Dick will be remembered for his literary efforts in the 1950s, not because he wrote about the future, but because he wrote about the moment, his life in 1959.  I’d love to know more about his life then and who the models were for Jack, Fay, Charley and Nat.

JWH – 1/7/13

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

Are you one of those people who believe too much of our taxes go to entitlement programs and the poor are underserving of a helping hand?  Well, if you want to see what America would be like without Medicare, Social Security, Food Stamps, Unemployment Insurance, Aid to Dependent Families, etc, then you need to read Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo.  In this novel-like nonfiction book, Boo spent over three years getting to know the people of Annawadi, a shanty town that’s grown up next to the Mumbai Airport, where three thousand people struggle to survive at the bottom of the economic ladder by any means possible.  She focuses on a poor Muslim family living among even poorer Hindu families.  Katherine Boo beautifully weaves a web of stories around the connected lives of Abdul, a teenage garbage recycler, his mother Zehrunisa, their neighbor Fatima, a one legged prostitute, Asha, a middle age woman, corrupt wheeler dealer, slumlord, and low level politician, Manju, Asha’s daughter who is college educated and tutors slum kids, and a dozen more people who are friends and relatives to these main characters.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity won the National Book Award for Nonfiction this year and is on so many Best Books of 2012 lists that I’ve lost count.  That’s why I bought it from Audible to listen to over the Christmas holidays.  Strangely, it makes a wonderful holiday book for contemplating good will and compassion for our fellow humans.  Katherine Boo is my Ghost of Christmas Present.

Not only does reading about some of the poorest of the poor on Earth make me grateful for my comfortable life, but it makes me ask:  What is self-reliance, charity and basic human rights?  How can we help people like those living in Annawadi?  Should we let human beings live like this?  The folks in this story are all hustling to get ahead.  They all have dreams of a better life, although most of them have tiny dreams compared to our huge ambitions.  I’m a life long liberal that grew up with LBJ’s Great Society, so is food stamps a welfare the answer?  I don’t know.  And even in Behind the Beautiful Forevers, these people aren’t failures, as described by Slate Magazine,

Abdul and Zehrunisa are two of a handful of Annawadians whose fortunes Boo follows closely in the book. Behind the Beautiful Forevers is the product of Boo’s three and a half years of reporting (with the help of translators) in Annawadi.  The slum is home to 3,000 people (crammed into 335 huts) and unknown numbers of goats, feral pigs, and water buffalo. Lest you get the wrong idea: “Almost no one in this slum was considered poor by official Indian benchmarks.” In spite of the fact that a few residents have to trap frogs and rats to fill out their meals, the slum is officially reckoned a success story, full of people on their way out of poverty, and the frog-eaters give other, non-frog-eating Annawadians “a felt sense of their own upward mobility.” Annawadi was built illegally on land next to the Mumbai International Airport and is under constant threat of slum clearance. It is surrounded by new luxury hotels, which make it “magnificently positioned for a trafficker in rich people’s garbage.”

The strange thing about this story is the biggest problems these people face are caused by their own making.  Abdul and his family were getting ahead with their garbage recycling business until they angered their neighbor Fatima and she caused a feud that brought the two families down tragically. 

In a way, I wished I had heard the last chapter first, where Katherine Boo explains how she wrote the story.  In fact, I wished she had chronicled her writing methods within the story throughout the book.  How she became accepted by these people is just as fascinating as their lives.  Katherine Boo does not look like she belongs in a Mumbai slum, so it’s incredibly hard to imagine her fitting in with these people.  One telling piece in the last chapter is where she admits her Annawadi friends got annoyed with her pestering them about the negative aspects of their lives.  They wanted to forget the bad and get on with the good.  So is our fascinating with their misery really a fair picture of their world?

I highly recommend reading her web site for the book before reading he book, because having the images of Annawadi and it’s people in my mind would have enhanced my reading pleasure.  Here’s the video from her site on YouTube.  My mental illustrations for the story was nothing like the real pictures.

In this interview Boo talks about her ambition to write a book about poverty without being sensational or sentimental, and I think she succeeds wonderfully.  When you read Behind the Beautiful Forevers it doesn’t make you want to look away in horror at their poverty.  I wish Boo would make a documentary out of her research, notes and videos she took.  One thing we see in the videos and photos is the people sometimes having fun.  That’s not in the book, and I wonder why?

Katherine Boo wrote a piece about Mumbai before, for the New Yorker about Slumdog Millionaire, “Opening Night” that gives another view of Mumbai’s slums.  Poverty is a more complex issue than just a lack of money.  We really are a global economy.  We really are all interconnected with a web of economics and culture.  We really are becoming a world society.

Other Reviews to Read

• All They Hope for Is Survival – New York Times
• A Decent Life is the Train That Hasn’t Hit You – Slate Magazine
• The Guardian
• Washington Post
• GoodReads – Over 1,900 reviews
• BusinessWeek
• The Washington Times
• The Los Angeles Review of Books
• The Huffington Post

JWH – 12/28/12