Book Review: 2054 by Elliot Ackerman and James G. Stavridis

 

2054 by Elliot Ackerman and James G. Stavridis

304 pages, Hardcover

Published March, 2024 by Penguin Press

Sometimes doing some totally different works for a sequel, but often you have to think about what it is that people are looking for in your story. The elements that made 2034 interesting were mostly related to the author's knowledge as U.S. military experts speculating about stuff they know all about. So what if they speculate 20 more years in the future and write about stuff they don’t know as well?

So this a a SF novel about AI or AGI and singularity, and it writes about technology in ways that feel out of date today. That is fine, I read SF from the fifties, but the insider thing is what made the first compelling despite the flaws the book has.

Since I read this and have already re-read The Mountain in Sea, which makes this novel feel pedestrian on the topic. I hate to be brutal, but this novel was just terrible. boring, with nothing new or interesting to say, doesn’t pick up interesting threads from the last book and flat characters all around. 2034 is imperfect but it is at least worthy of sparking conversation. 

Book Review Electric Forest by Tanith Lee

 

Electric Forest by Tanith Lee

160 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published August, 1979 by DAW

How had I never read Tanith Lee? I mean, I had read stories here and there. They were great. Her reputation was sky-high. I opened the library app and put this one on hold. Was it the best choice to start with? Somehow told me I have many better works to read in the future, so we will see. I did like this one, so I will read on.

My first impression of Lee’s writing is that it is more lush and beautiful prose than I expect from New Wave-era science fiction that feels like it is gothic and from an older era. The world-building is well done, but not subtle, despite heavy-handed use of made-up words and measurements like Sevenday of the First Dek on the Calendar-dial. January 7th?  It flows mostly invisibly in the flowery prose. The story was an inventive twist on a Frankenstein-like mad scientist story that plays well with themes that feel more raw and real coming from a woman writing it. If this is not one of the better Tanith Lee’s novels, then I expect some seriously good works later. 

Set in a far-future human colony world of Indigo, where most of the public is genetically engineered to be perfect. Magdala is a natural birth, the child of a prostitute and a John,  so she feels she is ugly and a freak, not to mention the lowest of low class. This world is not so alien that we can’t recognize the E.C. (Earth Conclave), but it is an excellent SF setting.

The twist at the end that I won't explain plays with reality that is worthy of Brunner or PKD, but it would be fair to say Lee is a bit more talented writer on a word-to-word basis. The alchemy of who becomes successful is more than word to word of course.  It is not just the twist; the setup of Magdala and her relationship after the consciousness transfer is ripe with drama. She has to keep her old body alive, and the question of who is alive and what is real grows out of this. “...Magdala, your consciousness has transferred wholly from your own unlovely head to a crystal conductor in the skull of a simulate woman. It’s a sensit dream, but, Christ, the most fantastic sensit of them all, Because this is real. You’ve got a body that factually be doing whatever you experience.”

She also realizes that Claudio, who looks like a savior, might not have her best interests in mind. He has a bit of a far-future tech-bro feeling. “Science was-is-his pastime. His only motive in becoming a scientist has been to stave off boredom.”

Magdala, not caring about her life, even after she gains beauty, gives her power with Caludio, who thinks he can control her. This future’s version of TV- Tri-V dramas also plays a role. After Magadala becomes a different person, her spongey relationship with reality blurs the line with the dramas she watches.

The ending might not work for everyone, but for the readers, it either totally makes the book amazing or nukes it, with very few opinions in between. In a novel about transformation and resurrection, reality is up for debate. This novel plays with themes spread across the various twists that have the effect of almost rebooting itself. 

Great stuff, it is interesting to compare her style to other women active in SF at the time. Not as directly political as Leguin, not as experimental as Joanna Russ, or as adventure-minded as Leigh Brackett. The reality is that the women of the New Era all did a little bit of it. I suspect a few books from now, Tanith Lee will rank up there with the greats.

Book Review: 2034: A Novel of the Next World War by Elliot Ackerman and James G. Stavridis

 

 2034: A Novel of the Next World War by Elliot Ackerman and James G. Stavridis 

320 pages, Hardcover

Published: March, 2021 by Penguin Press

This was an impulse checkout from the library. I stopped when I saw the title, and decided I was curious what these two authors, who were not speculative writers before these two books (including the sequel 2054) would do with the topic. It is one thing to get a SF writer's ideas of a future war, but even better to get the point of view of people who have fought the wars.

I was reading this as the country teeters on the edge of WW III. There is the factor of curiosity about what they get right and wrong, like predicting that the Strait of Hormuz would become important, and I hope they are wrong that China and the U.S. would not start launching nukes at each other. 

One of the authors, Stavidis is a former Admiral, and Ackerman was a former Marine Raider and CIA Special Activities Officer. So their experience in modern warfare is what makes the book interesting. This novel is essentially the story from multiple POVs about a global war that is mostly between China and the U.S., so it is impossible to hold these authors to these predictions at this point. Who knew we would have a president pressured by Israel at the time when he was overconfident coming off of the Venezuela adventure? 

The novel starts with some silly info-dumps and world-building. Ackerman is an experienced author, but maybe not skilled at tricks genre writers have come to learn for doing this stuff seamlessly. The writing/editing of this book smooths out enough. It is never high art, but that is not exactly the point. It seems that this novel was meant as a warning about how scary a global conflict with China could be. 

While China is the main opposition in this war, the alliance they have with Iran is where we get into things that look familiar. When a U.S. pilot is captured by the Iranians and the Chinese sink a U.S. destroyer, I started to worry this would be a biased Rah-rah America book that painted the Chinese as nothing but evil. The book had a couple of Chinese characters and could’ve benefited from more, but it certainly did shy from having the Americas make mistakes or do wrong in the war.

Lin Bao, the main Chinese character, has a bit of a silly backstory that makes his rise in CCP unlikely. For a book that turns the Chinese into the villains of the piece the authors don’t come off as very understanding of the culture. Not saying I do, but I raised my eyebrows a few times at that. Also, characters from India and Iran made me suspicious. Despite giving Americans some negative actions, there is a certain global narcissism about American this book feels. 

So what was the main problem with this book? In a book about the future of warfare, there is little to zero drone warfare, and my dudes, that is how Iran, Ukraine, and Russia are currently fighting. I know that from watching the news, and maybe these guys are to far out of the game.

Americans' overconfidence is a part of the novel. 

 

“All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, Lincoln had said, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. . . . If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.”

We have certainly seen this in Iran, but does this novel understand what China thinks?

“But our strength is what it has always been—our judicious patience. The Americans are incapable of behaving patiently. They change their government and their policies as often as the seasons. Their dysfunctional civil discourse is unable to deliver an international strategy that endures for more than a handful of years. They’re governed by their emotions, by their blithe morality and belief in their precious indispensability. This is a fine disposition for a nation known for making movies, but not for a nation to survive as we have through the millennia. . . . And where will America be after today? I believe in a thousand years it won’t even be remembered as a country. It will simply be remembered as a moment. A fleeting moment.”

This remains to be seen. But this novel doesn’t feel like it is predicting future warfare. I read it because I wanted to understand how war will be fought in the future. All this novel did was make me feel like I was seeing the shortcomings of the story.  One thing it did nail…

“The America that we believe ourselves to be is no longer the America that we are. . .”

 

Can't say I can recommend this book, but it is better than the sequel, but that is a review for another day. 

Book review: The World Jones Made by Philip K. Dick

 

The World Jones Made by PKD (second read)

199 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1956, Ace Books.

My 2018 review: 

So in 1956, in his second novel, PKD felt the need to make the point that Hitler was bad. There is also a story about eugenics and bred for Venus test-tube babies, a society based on relativism, a circus with sex-changing performers, and lots more. Crazy considering it was released the same year that Elvis had his first hit single. If you want to get my review, you'll have to listen to the third episode of Dickheads:

The 2018 DHP episode on Soundcloud

The same episode on Apple podcasts 

2026 Re-read:  

When we first started the podcast, I wasn’t as serious about it as I am now. When I read The World Jones Made in 2018, I got it from the library. A couple of books in I started highlighting the books, writing notes in the margins, and now I have an almost complete collection researched like that. I needed to get my own copy and highlight it for my complete collection.  I needed my copy to be dog-eared and marked up with a Yellow highlighter, and, much like my Solar Lottery re-read, it was a totally different experience. Since the podcast, I have re-read about ten of the novels a second or third time, and it always highlights deeper levels.

I was a novice Dickheads early in the journey when we recorded the first episode, and I barely knew anything about Phil, his life, and process. You can hear my thoughts on it in the links above.

Now I have consumed almost all his novels for the podcast, read almost 20 books about him,  I have worked on two Non-fiction PKD books of my own, visited his houses, and become an expert in his formula, which this novel was an early attempt at. So reading The World Jones Made this time was a very, very different experience.

This was Phil's second published he had written more than half a dozen at the time, written only a decade after WW II and heavy on the thing of “Nazis bad” this is a strange novel about a mutant pre-cog mutant who starts a movement, and has lots of really strange world building bits, from a post nuclear mutant freakshow/ circus, Sex changing dancers, Religons that worship pre-cogs, Venus test-tube babies, astronauts training in micro realities, weird drifter pollen like aliens (that are an awkward stand-in for Jews), there is enough weird ideas to populate four novels. 

The first chapter is terribly written with info-dumpy dialogue that had me worried, I was like, oh shit. This is gonna suck. One mutant reminds another, “We’re superior mutants, remember?” The quality of the book improved almost instantly after that chapter. I started to wonder if editor Don Wollheim didn’t rewrite some of those first pages; they didn’t read right. 

Pre-cogs were on his mind he finished this novel and the novella Minority the same month in December 1954. Floyd Jones is more than a pre-cog, but it is often misunderstood by the characters in the book and readers who think he is a fortune teller or sees the future. “After all, fortunetelling was ninety-nine percent showmanship and the rest shrewd guesswork”

No guesswork, but he doesn’t “see” the future; he exists both in the present and one year ahead. I didn’t understand the first time that he was not seeing the future he was living it. It was painful, hard to deal with. What he sees is limited, but enough that it gives him power in this world that is trying to rebuild. This was PKD’s first attempt to run various plotlines and multiple POVS.  He wanted even more, as he said in a letter. “Originally, the MS was much longer. ACE agreed to publish it if I'd cut it. I cut out the mutant-thread entirely”

 You can see elements of the PKD Formula (as he laid it out in a 1964 letter to fellow SF writer Ron Goulart in how the novel has three themes, two levels, and ends with a human act. Jones fits the formula's ideas of a protag, but the novel doesn’t open on a clear subhuman.

From his typewriter in the dining room of the Francisco Street house in Berkley PKD was not shy about adding his political opinions.

“To me, the spectacle of demagogues sending millions of people to their deaths, wrecking the world with holy wars and bloodshed, tearing down whole nations to put over some religious or political ‘truth’ is—” He shrugged. “Obscene. Filthy. Communism, Fascism, Zionism—they’re the opinions of absolutist individuals forced on whole continents. And it has nothing to do with the sincerity of the leader. Or the followers. The fact that they believe it makes it even more obscene. The fact that they could kill each other and die voluntarily over meaningless verbalisms . . .” 

While PKD is clearly not aligning with the right or left, he was bothered when Thomas Disch, around this time, called him a Marxist. The only ideology that gets a target here is Nazism.

While not a perfect entry in the PKD canon, this one is entertaining, thought-provoking, and weird. While I like the earlier Solar Lottery better, this one feels more PKD.

Book Review: Psychedelic Modernism: Literature and Film by Raj Chandarlapaty

Psychedelic Modernism: Literature and Film by Raj Chandarlapaty

268 pages, Hardcover

Published: February 7, 2024 by Vernon Press 

This will be a short review because I admit I read only the first one hundred pages about Audlus Huxley and the two chapters on Philip K. Dick. The other is presenting one of the chapters on Phil at the PKD Fest. (I am very much looking forward to that)

This is a topic I didn’t know much about; drugs and Psychedelic literature are something I have an interest in despite being straight edge myself. The first 100 pages taught me a lot about the author of Brave New World Audlus Huxley, I didn’t know that he was pretty much a campaigner for mind-expanding adventures, that the Doors got their name from his book all new to me. RC's research and details about this author’s life are worth picking up this book. 

The two chapters on PKD are certainly strong. The statement that I really liked was this one. “Author D. Scott Apel summed up the terminological axis most favorable to our inquiries: The unknown side of Phil was that he probably was a philosopher in a world where philosophy and philosophy had been replaced by technology. Now we have science, what do we need philosophy for? We can find out what works and what’s real. Nobody needs to speculate about it. If you want to be a philosopher, be a physicist. But Phil was a traditional classical philosopher.”

I am sure there is excellent, well-researched material throughout the book, but the Dick and Huxley stuff worked really well for me. I look forward to this lecture at PKD fest.

The Donut Legion by Joe R. Lansdale

 

The Donut Legion by Joe R. Lansdale

Audiobook, 9 hours. Narrated by 

Joe R. Lansdale

Kasey Lansdale

Finlay Stevenson

January LaVoy

Marc Vietor

Greg Littlefield

Brad Sanders

 

 

I accidentally happened upon the audiobook of this.  I was searching the Libby app for an audiobook, and found this. I didn’t know Joe R. Lansdale had written a book loosely influenced by the COVID era. In this mystery, an East-Texas writer, Charlie, and his PI brother try to solve a mystery surrounding the disappearance of Charlie’s ex-wife.  

The Audiobook is read by a cast, but the main narration is Lansdale himself, which is great because he is a fantastic reader. The cast also includes his very talented daughter, who is a great storyteller in her own right. 

Why is this COVID era??? Charlie follows the clues a Q-Anon-like UFO cult that owns Donut shops around the area. This book is pure Lansdale, character-driven with funny twists of the language, and excellent deployment of irony that is one part Fletch, one part Regional, and Elmore Leonard-like crime. 

The audiobook is well produced, but I wish I had read it with my eyeballs instead of my ears.

 

 

Book Review: Dan O'Bannon's Guide to Screenplay Structure: Inside Tips from the Writer of Alien, Total Recall and Return of the Living Dead by Dan O'Bannon & Matt Lohr,

 

 Dan O'Bannon's Guide to Screenplay Structure: Inside Tips from the Writer of Alien, Total Recall and Return of the Living Dead by Dan O'Bannon and Matt Lohr

272 pages, Paperback 

Published: 2013 by Michael Wiese Productions

 

There are a multitude of reasons I wanted to read this book about Screenwriting. I personally love the craft of screenwriting, and movies like most people. I respect the films and productions of Dan O’Bannon, who started at the USC film school and made his mark on cinema in less than a decade with Alien.  I was interested in DOB’s book for PKD reasons; he is credited with two films based on the short fiction of the master SF writer. Total Recall, co-written by DOB, was my entry point to PKD.

DOB was also PKD’s introduction to Hollywood. His interest in Second Variety, which would become an unfaithful film, Screamers. I have read DOB's very faithful screenplay based on PKD's masterpiece, Second Variety, called Claws. It is amazing. While it is true that Blade Runner was the movie that opened Hollywood to the possibility of PKD films, DOB was the first serious writer to consider really adapting him, and sparked interest around the industry. I am not sure Blade Runner would exist without that CLAWS script.

There is plenty of practical writing advice, mostly taken from breaking down classic films are looking at their structure. He also spends some time looking at the origins of narrative story to the origins of Plato.  This is all good stuff. The chapter on Crouching Tiger is great, also a great chapter on SEVEN. 

The various chapters have exercises, and different worksheets built into them. It is a very practical book for beginners. It was however, not exactly what I was looking for. I wanted more personal experiences and examples taken from DOB’s long career behind the camera. The end result is a screenwriting textbook but anyone could’ve written it, I was looking for something more personal.  Examples drawn from his own writing experience, from scripts produced and unproduced in his personal career. 

Still, it is pretty Great.