Time Out of Joint, by Philip K. Dick

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012
240 pages, Kindle edition
First published 1959

In this early Philip K. Dick novel, 46-year-old Ragle Gumm has a perfectly ordinary life, living with his sister Margo and Margo's husband Vincent in a nice quiet, perfectly ordinary community. The only extraordinary thing about Ragle is that he makes his living by winning a daily newspaper contest — the contest is called "Where Will the Little Green Man Be Next?" and Ragle wins it everyday by predicting exactly where this little green person will show up. He has the world's longest-running contest-winning record, and his entire life is devoted to the task.

But lately Ragle has begun having doubts about both those things — his life and the contest. After having some very disturbing hallucinations and a few worrisome encounters, he begins thinking maybe there's more going on than just game-playing. Or maybe someone's just playing a game with him. And when he begins investigating, he comes to believe that there might be a lot more than his reputation resting on his daily win. It's beginning to seem to Ragle that the fate of the world might just be somehow centered on him and his ability to predict the outcome of the daily "Little Green Man" puzzle. But how much of what he imagines is just imagination? And how much is real? Or is any of it real?

Can't say much more about the book because there are twists and surprises I don't want to reveal. Some I saw coming, some caught me completely off guard.

This is the first Philip K. Dick novel I've read, although I think I might have read some of his short fiction back in the 1970s an '80s. I've had this one on my TBR shelf for literally decades, and I'm really glad I finally got around to reading it; for the most part, it was very enjoyable — a little slow in places, but not so slow that I felt like abandoning or skipping ahead to the ending. And it's definitely made me want to read more of his work.

Rating: ⭑⭑⭑⭑

........

Monthly Key Word Reading Challenge .
Mount TBR Reading Challenge .

Against the Fall of Night

Arthur C. Clarke
First published 1948
About 200 pages

Description (from Amazon.com):

Living in the 10-billion-year-old city of Diaspar, Alvin is the last child born of humanity. He is intensely curious about the outside world. According to the oldest histories kept by the city fathers, however, there is no outside world--it was destroyed by the Invaders millions of years ago. 

One day, Alvin finds a rock with an inscription seemingly meant for him: "There is a better way. Give my greetings to the Keeper of the Records. Alaine of Lyndar." This cryptic message takes Alvin on a quest to discover humanity's true past--and its future.

My Thoughts:

Clarke's first novel, originally appearing as a novella in a 1948 issue of Startling Stories magazine. Later reworked again and republished as The City and the Stars. I love Arthur C. Clarke's writing and this is a book I've been meaning to read for years now. Not as polished as his more mature efforts, of course, but still a great story and I did enjoy it. Interesting to see a lot of the themes and ideas that show up in his later works getting their first mentions here.

One thing I love about sci-fi is the great artwork on the covers, especially the paperbacks, and this book is no exception. I actually read this in the Kindle edition which, of course, lacks that aspect. But I've had several other editions over the years. The cover pictured above, from Pyramid Books is from the early 1970s. And this Berkley paperback from the 1980s is one of my favorites:

My Rating: ✭✭✭½ (out of a possible 6 stars / grade = B)

Teaser/Intro Tuesday: With Folded Hands

Tuesday again. First Tuesday of December -- if anybody knows what happened to the month of November, please tell me. Somehow it disappeared while I wasn't paying attention.

Anyhow, time for another Teaser Tuesday. And today I'm joining in on First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, hosted by Diane at Bibliophile By the Sea.

This week, my teaser/intro comes from Jack Williamson's classic story (or "novelette" as it was called back then), With Folded Hands -- one of the science fiction works I've got lined up for the Sci-Fi Experience hosted by Carl V. at Stainless Steel Droppings. It first appeared in the July 1947 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine. These are the opening lines:

Underhill was walking home from the office, because his wife had the car, the afternoon he first met the new mechanicals. His feet were following his usual diagonal path across a weedy vacant block -- his wife usually had the car -- and his preoccupied mind was rejecting various impossible ways to meet his notes at the Two Rivers bank, when a new wall stopped him.
The wall wasn't any common brick or stone, but something sleek and bright and strange....

July 1947 issue

So, what are your thoughts about this one? Like it? Hate it? Go on reading or not?

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in your comment here.

Capsule Review: A Fall of Moondust

Written by Arthur C. Clarke
PAN Books, 1964; 206 pages

First published in 1961; Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel. In the book, the Dust-cruiser Selene has been buried beneath the Moon's Sea of Thirst, trapping the crew and passengers under many feet of deadly dust. Plot revolves around efforts to come up with a way of getting to the Selene and getting everyone out before the cruiser is destroyed or loses its oxygen supply. A really good "hard" science fiction tale that seems only slightly dated. There's an appealing you-are-there, almost documentary feel to the novel. My only quibble is that sometimes the sci gets in the way of the fi -- that is, character development tends to take a backseat to all that technical detail. Still, a good, fast read.

Teaser Tuesdays: A Fall of Moondust

This week my teaser lines come from a vintage sci-fi novel, Arthur C. Clarke's A Fall of Moondust. In the book, the Dust-cruiser Selene has malfunctioned and been buried deep beneath the Moon's Sea of Thirst, trapping the crew and passengers under many feet of deadly dust. This snippet is from page 118:

It was then that Pat knew, without any further argument, that he was genuinely in love with Susan. For his first reaction was not fear for his own safety, but anger and grief that, after having endured so much, she would have to die within sight of rescue.

I don't usually expect romance from Clarke's books, but this one definitely has a romantic angle to it. And since this teaser comes from about midway through the story, I'm still hoping for a happy ending.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in your comment here.

Review: Contact

Written by Carl Sagan
Simon & Schuster, 1985; 432 pages

Description, from Amazon.com:

A worldwide system of radio telescopes, in the charge of brilliant astrophysicist Ellie Arroway, picks up a "Message" from outer space. Ellie is instrumental in decoding the message and building the "Machine" for which it gives instructions (despite stiff opposition from religious fundamentalists and those scientists and politicians who fear it may be a Trojan Horse). Then she and fellow members of a small multinational team board the machine, take a startling trip into outer space and on their return must convince the scientific community that they are not the perpetrators of a hoax. Sagan's . . . informed and dramatically enacted speculations into the mysteries of the universe, taken to the point where science and religion touch, make his story an exciting intellectual adventure and science fiction of a high order.

********************

Before reading Carl Sagan's 1985 science fiction novel, Contact, I had read some of his nonfiction, and always enjoyed his many TV appearances. I suppose the old accusation about his being a "popularizer" is true, but I don't think there's really anything wrong with trying to bring an appreciation of science to the masses. But I have to admit it was the 1997 film of this novel that caught my interest and nudged me into reading the book. And that was a good thing, because it's a great read and I really enjoyed it, even though in many ways the film and book were very different – the film was probably more exciting, but the book naturally gives you a lot more to think about. Sagan wasn't brilliant at painting characters – aside from Ellie, most of the characters in the novel are a lot like interchangeable parts. But, after all, it's the story and the ideas behind that story that are the main reasons for reading the book.

A few things occurred to me as I was reading. One of them is that Sagan must have spent almost his entire life in meetings! He portrays the meeting, the conference, and the collaborative endeavor better than just about any writer I've ever come across. And he had some interesting ideas about religion – some of which is there in his nonfiction, of course. But it's much more entertaining here – there are some great exchanges between the scientists and the preachers. I loved this passage:

"If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn't he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why's he constantly repairing and complaining? No, there's one thing the Bible makes clear: The biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer. He's not good at design, he's not good at execution. He'd be out of business, if there was any competition."

I did find reading a sci-fi book from the '80s to be just a bit disorienting. Sagan's wonderfully inventive imagination didn't extend to cell phones or email or the Internet, and consequently much of his future world seems already outdated and a bit slow-moving. But that doesn't really take away from the overall enjoyment. This is one I'd definitely recommend.

Review: The Island of Dr. Moreau

Written by H.G. Wells
Stone and Kimball, 1896; 249 pages
Available online at Google Books

H.G. Wells once again shows us it's dangerous to mess with Mother Nature.

Edward Prendick ("a private gentleman"), after being abandoned at sea by a madman of a ship's captain, finds himself rescued by the inhabitants of a mysterious island in the South Pacific. There he meets and is sheltered by the infamous Dr. Moreau. The mad doctor, who has been exiled from England because of his experiments in vivisection, is on a mission to create a new, superior race of beings. At first grateful for being rescued, Prendick gradually learns the true horror and dangerous consequences of Moreau's shadowy, gruesome biological research, and what it means for the grotesque inhabitants of Moreau's hellish island hideaway.

Wells' classic sci-fi adventure tale was apparently something of a sensation when it first appeared at the end of the 19th Century, and is heavy with themes and worries of its day – eugenics, vivisection, Darwin's writings, psychiatry. And its concentration on what, today, we would call "bioengineering" adds a very contemporary feeling to the novel, more than a hundred years after it was written. Moreau's warning that "The study of Nature makes a man at last as remorseless as Nature" is a problem scientists will probably always face.

I don't really know why it's taken me so long to read this one, since H.G. Wells is one of my favorite writers. Although I didn't love it as much as War of the Worlds or The Time Machine, it was still great fun – lots of excitement and surprises. And as always with Wells' work, it was beautifully written and accessible – just what you'd expect from one of England's greatest story-tellers.

Review: Solaris

Written by Stanislaw Lem
Published by Harvest/Harcourt, 1987, 205 pages
Translated from the French by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox
Translation copyright 1970, Faber and Faber Ltd.

What's It All About?

From the publisher's synopsis:

"When psychologist Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds himself confronting a painful memory embodied in the physical likeness of a past lover. Kelvin learns that he is not alone in this, and that other crews examining the planet are plagued with their own repressed and newly real memories. Could it be, as Solaris scientists speculate, that the ocean may be a massive neural center creating these memories, for a reason no one can identify?"

Kelvin and the other researchers on the Solaris space station are being "visited" by loved ones who should not be there. Are the visitors as real as they themselves seem to believe? And if so, why are they there? How have they materialized in this place at this time? And is their sudden appearance benign or is it part of a more sinister development, somehow tied to the planet the scientists are studying?

What Did I Think About It?

In his novel Solaris, first published in 1961, Polish author Stanislaw Lem managed to pull off that most difficult and most vital of tricks for the science fiction writer – the creation of a completely unique and authentic (even though mysterious) fictional world. Or, in the case of Solaris, a unique and authentic body of literature and information about that fictional world. Much of the book is taken up with detailed descriptions of the discovery and documentation of the planet Solaris, and the academic industry that grows up around it over a period of years. I suppose, depending on your personal tastes, this can be endlessly fascinating or endlessly boring. I have to admit that after a few chapters of "Solarist" minutiae, I started skimming over the details in order to get to the actual story.

I've had Solaris on my TBR list for over thirty years now, ever since I first heard about it in the 1970s. But I probably wouldn't have been nudged into reading it if I hadn't finally seen the Steven Soderbergh movie from 2002, starring George Clooney as Kris Kelvin. It's a haunting, thought-provoking film that really caught my attention; I've watched it several more times. And since I read the novel, I've also seen Andrei Tarkovsy's 1972 version. Neither film is completely faithful to the book, though each is different in its own way. And the novel is, to some extent, both more and less interesting than either film. It's certainly more cerebral.

For me, one thing that really stood out in the novel (as opposed to the films) was the relative lack of modern computer technology. Which is a little odd, since science fiction of the time was full of early imaginings of cyberspace and computers. After all, 2001's HAL was only five or six years down the road. However, there's very little of that in Solaris. When Kelvin begins his research on the possibly sentient ocean that covers the surface of the planet, he does it the old fashioned way – using books from the space station's library shelves. In a way, of course, that was refreshing; but also a little strange and disorienting.

Would I Recommend It?

Though I hate to admit it, I was a little disappointed in the book. Maybe it's just a result of reading about it for so many years: I've seen it receive so much praise from so many reviewers, perhaps my expectations were just too high. I didn't hate it, though; and I'm still very impressed with Lem's achievement. But if you like your sci-fi speculation mixed with more than a passing nod at action and drama, this probably isn't the place to look.

---------------
20 in 2009 Challenge
2009 TBR Lite Challenge
Books Into Movies Challenge
Lost In Translation Challenge
Read Your Own Books (RYOB) Challenge
The 42 (Sci-Fi) Challenge
Winter Reading Challenge

Teaser Tuesdays: Out on a Lem

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading. The rules are these:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
• Please avoid spoilers!

This week, my teaser sentences come from Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem:

I summoned up all my remaining strength, straining every nerve, and waited for death. I went on waiting. . . I seemed to be growing smaller, and the invisible sky, horizonless, the formless immensity of space, without clouds, without stars, receded, extended and grew bigger all round me. [p. 90; note: the ellipsis in the second sentence is the author's]

The Sunday Salon: Hot Reads

Well, I'm sitting here trying to get in a Sunday Salon kinda mood. But all I can really think to say is "Why is it so HOT?!" Northern Virginia is not supposed to have triple-digit temperatures in early June, but that seems to be what we've had today. And coming right after a particularly long, cool spring, this heat seems even more unbearable. OK, I know all about the ozone layer – but whoever it was invented air conditioning should be declared a saint.

Today was even too hot for a visit to the pool, so I've been able to spend some time just sitting around with a good book. Actually, with several good books. Part of the day I spent sorting through the books I've got lined up for my summer reading list – a few books I'm reading for various challenges, and a few others I want to read just for pleasure. Not that challenges don't count as pleasure, of course; but I always think of them as a bit like reading assignments in English class. Gives me a little incentive to keep reading – working to achieve that hypothetical A+.

But mostly I've been reading Arthur C. Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two. That counts as pleasure and assignment, both: I've signed up for Becky's 42 Challenge, so lately I've been reading a little more sci-fi than usual. There was a time when I used to read science fiction almost exclusively. And I'd built up a huge library of sci-fi books and magazines. But then sometime back in the '80s I moved on to other subjects, and sold or gave away most of the collection. To quote the immortal Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon!"

This is an appropriate moment to be reading 2010, the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey. The original movie and book both appeared forty years ago, around the same time in 1968 – the film premiered in April, and the book was published in July. According to Clarke's "author's note," he and Stanley Kubrick were working on the film and screenplay and novel simultaneously, during the period from 1964 to 1968, so that each affected the other to some extent.

Clarke also says he believes the book stands up well in light of "recent" discoveries. But, of course, he was writing that author's note in 1982 when 2010 first appeared. I haven't gotten very far into the book yet, but it's going to be interesting to see how apt that observation will still be, twenty-six years later. Forty years beyond the original book and film.

But one thing he says definitely remains true:

"2001 was written in an age that now lies beyond one of the Great Divides in human history; we are sundered from it forever by the moment when Neil Armstrong set foot upon the Moon. July 20, 1969, was still half a decade in the future when Stanley Kubrick and I started thinking about the 'proverbial good science-fiction movie' . . . . Now history and fiction have become inextricably intertwined."

42 Challenge: Science Fiction Stuff

Well, I've just wrapped up one challenge (see below), so naturally it's time to jump right into a brand new one. I've known about this for a week or two now, and fully intended to join up, but I'm just now getting around to it. It's the 42 Challenge and it's being hosted by Becky, of Becky's Book Reviews.

The challenge "mission" is to "read, watch, listen, and review 42 sci-fi related items." Actually, you don't even need to do reviews – lists are OK, too. And, as Becky says, this is much more than a reading challenge because "short stories, poetry (???), novellas, novels, episodes of TV shows, episodes of radio shows, movies, comic books, graphic novels, audio books, essays or articles about science fiction or science fiction writers, biographies of science fiction authors" are all acceptable as items.

The official beginning of the challenge is January 1, 2009, and it ends December 3, 2009 – so it runs 42 weeks and 42 days. But Becky says you can begin whenever you join, which gives you a little cushion of extra time. Well, I'm even extending my cushion to include a review I did a few days earlier this week, about the new TV version of Michael Crichton's "Andromeda Strain" (see review).

So I'm all set to start immersing myself in science fiction stuff. Now if you book bloggers will just stop coming up with such tempting challenges, I'll be fine (really, I will).