For Connoisseurs of 4th Dimensional Travel

The Little Book by Selden Edwards is a new classic time travel novel for those who love contemplating traveling in the 4th dimension.  It’s right up there with my all-time favorite time travel adventures:

Now don’t jump over to Google and start reading reviews of The Little Book – too many reviewers have given way too much away, and I’ll work hard not to do that here.  This is a first novel for Selden Edwards and it took him thirty years to write.  I highly recommend buying the audio book edition narrated by Jeff Woodman to get the full affect of this dazzling yarn.  Listening will keep you from reading too fast and rushing through the story, and Woodman gives excellent voice and feelings to the characters.

The Little Book is about travel to Vienna in 1897, and if you are up on your history you might guess what famous historical personages make guest appearances.  After reading this novel I hunger to to read about Vienna and many of its famous citizens, and even research some of the books and people that I assume are products of Edwards imagination, but feel so real in the story.  I want to believe that Arnauld Esterhazy, the prep school history teacher, was at least based on someone real.

Like The Time Traveler’s Wife, The Little Book is a love story, about a man, Wheeler from 1988 who falls for a 1897 lady, Weezie.  Unlike the Niffenegger book, Edwards style is less serious, if not zany, which leads to the major weakness of the novel.  The story is meant to be deadly serious and realistic, but sometimes the sparkling prose comes across too light, making it seem more like a fable or tall tale, giving the feeling that Edwards is highly amused as he manipulates us readers.

If I had written this book I would have had all the main characters narrate their stories in the first person, switching between each in a round robin style that conveyed the cyclic nature of time travel.

But I am nitpicking here.  Selden Edwards writes in a unique voice that is entertaining and full of fascinating details.  He constructs his characters so they go through numerous changes that surprised me the reader.  I especially loved the cross generational communications because Edwards really does make us feel that each generation has a different voice and mindset.  Jumping back to 1897 Vienna goes to explain how Freud changed our awareness of the inner landscape of our minds.  Characters before Freud need to be mentally different.

The Little Book is a little book and goes much too quickly.  I don’t like getting trapped in long books, but this one could have been two, three or even four times the length and I think I’d still hate for it to end.  Edwards stays close to the core plot and characters, whereas he could have meandered though 1897 more, and when you come to the end, you might be like me and wished the story was longer, giving all the details between 1897 and 1988.

I love geometric plots, and this one is supposed to be a Möbius strip, but in the end, Edwards cuts the loop leaving the plot linear.  I would have jumbled scenes so the narrator juggled the plot, like Niffenegger played with her storyline.  Edwards focuses on building literary characters rather than designing literary plots, but I think time travel seems to beg for twisty elements.

I don’t think The Little Book is a great novel, but it’s very entertaining, and adds to the evolution of time travel stories.  I’m pretty sure if you loved Time and Again or The Time Traveler’s Wife, you will probably love The Little Book.  Time travel novels tend to be short, so I’m wondering when someone will write the Lord of the Rings epic size time travel fantasy.  I know romantic novelists like Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series are epic in size, but I haven’t read it.  It appears less about time travel and more historical romance to me.  Not my cup of tea, although most good time travel stories involve romances.

There are plenty of science fiction series built around time travel, but they are mostly adventures.  The books in my list above play with time philosophically.   Books that explore changing the paths of events are less interesting now than books that use time travel to change the development of characters.  Few stories about time travel reflects the true inner impact that I think time traveling would have on a person.  I think Heinlein and Niffenegger went the furthest with this, but I expect new writers to go further.

Jim

Sarah Palin

Last night while watching Sarah Palin speak at the Republican convention I came the closest I ever have to wanting to vote conservative.  Sarah Palin is one of the most engaging plain-talking politicians I’ve ever heard.  What’s terribly amusing is she is a product of liberal evolution.  It’s been only a few years back that most conservatives believed that women belonged in the kitchen, and less than a century since they were allowed to vote.  It would be rather ironic if the conservatives elect the first woman Vice President and possible future President.

Conservatives may not like change, but they are adapting quite well with Sarah Palin.  They have been quick to accept the idea that she should be treated like a man and be freed of maternal slavery so she can put in the long hours needed be a political leader.  It’s either that, or not allow any candidate, male or female, with dependent children to work in the White House.  Hell, it hasn’t been that many years since I’ve heard conservatives talk about how women can’t be President because of hormones.  I’m proud of you Republicans for evolving in your liberal thinking.  Now, if you could only get over your hang-ups over gays and lesbians.

I really liked John McCain’s comments tonight about Obama and how we’re all Americans.  I get so sick of Republicans acting like liberals aren’t patriotic, and believe we don’t love this country as much as they do.  Republicans have this really offensive behavior of thinking that anyone that doesn’t agree with their philosophy is a traitor to the U.S.A.  I think that attitude is un-American because it erodes free thinking and encourages ugly group-think.  I believe the McCain-Palin ticket has tried to back off from acting like that.  I think McCain knows it’s offensive, but I don’t know about Palin yet, with her pit-bull with lipstick demeanor.

While listening to Sarah Palin I had to keep reminding myself why I don’t vote Republican.  The thing is I have lots of conservative beliefs myself, but Republicans have such a smug holier-than-thou attitude towards everything that I don’t think I’d fit in with my Hamlet like indecisiveness of seeing a thousand gray shades in every issue.  Besides, they really hate atheistic evolutionists like me.

Of course I also have problems with Democratic ideals too.  I’m comfortable in the political middle and feel both parties are extremists.  I’m for free trade and globalism, lower taxes, smaller government, but I’m also for helping the poor, some entitlements, and a minimal level of universal health care.  I love both business and the environment.  I think abortion should be legal but wished no one would ever get one.  I think capital punishment can be an ethical solution but doubt if we have the discernment to see the true distinctions in what’s involved.  I think war is often necessary, that it’s important to keep a prepared military, that the Iraq War might be the biggest mistake our country ever made, but since we broke it we should pay for it.  I wished the Republicans would admit that Iraq was a huge mistake and I wished the Democrats would admit that sticking with the surge and going the distance is the right thing to do.

Politics is so far from black and white that I can’t believe people get so polarized.  I disagree with many of Sarah Palin political stances, but I think she might make a good leader.  I think her small town salt-of-the-earth good-people philosophy is fine as long as she doesn’t press personal and religious beliefs into law for everyone.

I have an odd view about Republicans and Democrats in relation to religion.  I think Republicans are really Old Testament thinkers, and Democrats are followers of the New Testament.  The Old Testament is about God, the Law and the Chosen people.  The New Testament is all about compassion for the poor, sharing the wealth of the fish and loaves, understanding criminals and prostitutes, and so on.  The Old Testament is about being powerful, prospering, forming a strong nation to please God, and most of all, law and order.  The New Testament is about uplifting the meek and helpless, understanding your neighbors, and walking in other people’s shoes, breaking out of the old ways and forging a compassionate philosophy.

I can understand all that Old Testament thinking – it’s how mankind got its act together to create civilization.  The New Testament is the origin of liberal thought.  It’s the beginning of the shift from believing that the nation is of ultimate importance, to the shift in valuing the importance of the individual.  All people in this world, except the most extreme fundamentalists have been affected by liberal thought.  The trouble with the most extreme liberals is they threaten the stability of the nation.  For example, would universal healthcare damage the economy?  Would gay marriage threaten the social fabric?

In other words, I can understand why conservatives are threatened by liberals.  But to my conservative friends, has women in the military, boardrooms, legislative houses and maybe the White House hurt us?  Is education about how not to get pregnant or acquire a STD so scary, especially when children are bombarded with pro-sex television, movies, books, songs, and advertisement from the time they are tiny?  Sex education in the schools of any kind is completely anti-sex compared to pop culture.  And do you not realize that teaching creationism or intelligent design is defective thinking similar to astrology, Tarot cards and palm reading – something the Enlightenment passed by hundreds of years ago?

If the Republicans get more liberal, more into the New Testament, more concerned about the environment, maybe I’ll consider voting for them.  Sarah Palin, I think you are beautiful, charming, full of grit and sand, honest, and worthy of the job, but also still too Old Testament scary for me.

Jim

Lord of Light

A couple weeks ago I reread Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny, a favorite novel from my memory of 1967 by listening to the new audio book edition from Audible Frontiers.  For days afterward, I hammered out an ever wordier review that I never could finish because what I kept striving to say became ever more complex and out of my grasp.  So welcome to try number two.

Here’s my problem.  Forty-one years ago I read Lord of Light and thought it deserved its book of the year, 1968 Hugo Award, that made Zelazny, as well as Samuel R. Delany, the new comets streaking across the science fictional sky.  Lord of Light took a traditional idea of colonizing a new world and jazzed it up by blending in Hindu mythology.  It was colorful, had lots of vivid scenes, and Zelazny deserved high praise for trying to do something new and break out of John W. Campbell’s vision of space opera.

Fast forward to our future and I read Lord of Light again.  It’s not the same book – well, I’m not the same reader, so the exact same book came out different this time.  In the 1960s, New Wave science fiction felt sophisticated compared to 1930s and 1940s classic science fiction, but looking back now, Lord of Light seems primitive and crude, like The Skylark of Space felt when I read it around the same time I read Lord of Light the first time.  Lord of Light is still clever and somewhat vivid, but now I feel like Zelazny didn’t spend enough time developing his ambitious fantasy.

The idea of tech savvy first colonists setting themselves up as gods and enslaving their descendants in a pre-tech world is a far out concept, although I don’t know what Freud would have done with the idea.  The idea is so anti-science fictional that’s it’s amazing to think that it won the Hugo that year, now that I’m looking backwards.

The trouble with this contrived plot is it has no philosophical weight, a quality that makes science fiction novels have lasting power.  That, and the fact that the characterization is so minimal that it has zero emotional impact.  There are people that still love this story, but I’m not one of them.  So, do I savage a classic novel of my beloved genre, or do I promote it as a worthy read for historical purposes?  In my first attempt to review this story I struggled to find all it’s positive aspects and compare them to great SF/F that’s been written since then.  But the more I work to find comparisons, the more I realized that the field of writing has evolved, even for the lowly science fiction genre, leaving Lord of Light shipwrecked in the past.

I’m currently reading The Little Book by Selden Edwards, a literary time travel novel that is so well written, so imaginative, so deep in characterization that it makes the once dazzling Lord of Light fizzle.  I also listened to Heinlein’s 1951 Starman Jones just after Lord of Light and it still shines.  Why?  Heinlein had great science fictional ideas, but he also had characterization and good page turning plotting, at least in the 1950s.  Lord of Light would make a great comic book – it has colorful scenes, super heroes and the depth of characterization that matches the average DC or Marvel comic.

I know my science fiction friends think I love to make inflammatory statements like the one I’m about to make, but I don’t.  Writers outside of the science fiction and fantasy genre are taking science fictional concepts and writing much better stories than the guys inside of the genre.  Look how Michael Chabon swept our awards this year.  Read The Time Traveler’s Wife, The Life of Pi, Never Let Me Go, The Sparrow, His Dark Materials, Cloud Atlas, and other outsider novels that build their stories around our fantastic themes.

Part of Zelazny’s failure is he wrote for a genre where he had to hammer out the books.  If he had worked on Lord of Light with the same time and applied study as J. R. R. Tolkien did for his books, Lord of Light would be a fantastic SF classic.  Instead it’s basically a foundation for a great SF novel. The forty-one years since 1967 has up the ante on what it takes to write a stand-out SF novel.  If a young new writer took Zelazny’s idea and made it into a genuine statement about reality, space exploration and added real characterization she would be a new comet blazing across our science fiction skies.

To understand what I mean, read Lord of Light and imagine how it would be filmed.  It might have much of the feel of the recent Transformers, Ironman and Hellboy movies.  That’s okay if all you want is an ephemeral summer blockbuster that will seem silly in forty years.  I just finished reading Edith Wharton’s An Age of Innocence (1920) and I’m now reading The House of Mirth (1905), and these books have lasting power.  To last, you have to have something to say, not preaching like later Heinlein, but careful observations about our reality.  Wharton is brilliant at observing communication between men and women. 

All Zelazny did was take ancient super heroes, now called Hindu gods, and created a science fictional setting to justify their returned existence, which essentially is what every super hero comic does.  They are flashy action myths that offer no hidden parables.  We assume Sam is the good guy and the gods of this planet’s heaven are the bad guys, but that was never justified by skillful writing.  Lord of Light was written just as the the 1960s was about to peak in its social transformations, and Zelazny fails to even try to tie it in – what a wasted opportunity.

Now imagine writing a philosophical novel that realistically tries to capture what it’s like to become godlike.  Let’s say in the future we have access to virtual worlds where artificial beings dwell, but we don’t want them to know about our world.  This has all kinds of philosophical possibilities.  Then imagine using such a setup for first person shooter wars.  How limp would that be?  That’s sort of what Zelazny did.

Zelazny faintly hints at greater possibilities in wayward places within Lord of Light, but his plot is so thin about overthrowing heaven that we never feel that that it goes beyond setting up battle scenes.

I wish I could write fiction.  This is an exciting time to be a writer.  Writing techniques have evolved to dizzy heights of sophistication.  Yes, I urge you to listen to the new edition of Lord of Light to see why 1967 science fiction was so exciting then, but don’t accept it as a great novel, instead imagine how to retool it with modern writing technology.

I think science fiction has been coasting for years, with the exciting new Turks coming from outside of the field.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s lot of sense of wonder left in science fiction, at least I hope there is, but the genre tends to be a record label repacking old hits rather than putting time and money into finding new forms of music.  I don’t read many new novels from within the genre any more, but I still try to read a certain number of novellas, novelettes and short stories from the best-of anthologies every year. 

There’s no lack of far out ideas.  What’s needed is a New Wave of story telling techniques.  In this decade, the new Zelaznys and Delanys are coming from outside of the genre, so SF isn’t getting the credit.  To the larger outside world, only a tiny handful of true SF novels have caught the attention of their bigger pond.  The most famous is Ender’s Game.  Novels like Neuromancer and Snow Crash are on the distant radar of a few non-science fiction readers, but for the most part, the world of science fiction is as isolated as the star writers known to MFA majors.

The place to be are those tables in bookstores, near the front door, that display the trade paperbacks of titles that stay on them for months, if not years – the books that all the hardcore bookworms read.  The ones that get produced as audio books, studied by book clubs and made into movies.  These are the books that surf the cresting wave of popular literature.  SF and fantasy books are seldom seen on these tables, and that’s because the SF/F/H genre writers aren’t using the latest writing techniques to tell their stories.

It’s not about literary quality, not in the academic sense.  It’s why books like Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series are stacked on floor all around these tables.  I know my science fiction fans think I keep bashing the genre, but I’m trying to be helpful.  Twilight succeeds where other fantasy books fail because most genre books are tone deaf to emotion and characterization.  Lord of Light will never be a classic outside of it’s tiny puddle because it measures almost absolute zip at expressing emotion warmth, and barely climbs to the level of one-dimension for its characters.

I’m not trying to be nasty here, but I know it sounds like it. If you’ve never read any good novels, and spent your life reading within the science fiction genre, then Lord of Light will feel brilliant.  Compared to E. E. Doc Smith, Edmund Hamilton and most of the other SF up to the 1960s, it is.  In terms of storytelling plotting, it doesn’t even get up to average Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter novel.  Where Lord of Light shines is fantastic ideas.  Science fiction is a literature of fantastic ideas.  What I want to see are SF novels that mix great ideas with good story telling.  Can you imagine the success of SF if science fictional ideas could be conveyed with the storytelling techniques of J. K. Rowling?

Jim

Is Prince Charming A Hero?

During one of my many ongoing arguments with the ladies at work about the never ending battle between the sexes, I was surprised to hear one very astonishing assertion put forth, at least to me, that Prince Charming is a hero that every boy fantasizes about becoming.  Peggy and Heather were ganging up on me to defend their belief that people are not animals and biology is not the overwhelming motivating force I claim it to be.  I keep trying to convince Peggy that many of her basic beliefs are due to biology and not as she adamantly insists, due to what we choose to believe through free will.

I argued that popular myths often reflect underlying sexual motivations, and that our private fantasies reflect biological impulses to reproduce, whether sexual or romantic.  They countered back that Cinderella is a universal fantasy that doesn’t deal with sexuality, but is about pure romance, and it certainly doesn’t grow out of biochemistry.  I shot back that it was only universal to girls.  Both of them, talking at the same time, essentially said my philosophy was warped by crude sexual impulses and that Prince Charming was indeed a universal fantasy hero for boys.

“You’ve gotta be kidding!”  I said, amazed that both of them could think that.  “Boys don’t fantasize about being Prince Charming.”  Okay, that was over-generalizing, but no friend of mine ever revealed such a desire.

“Of course they do,” the ladies insisted loudly.  “Prince Charming is a hero!  All boys dream of saving women is distress.”  They went on to imply that Prince Charming fell into the categories of heroes like those Joseph Campbell described in his famous books.

“First off, Prince Charming is not a hero.  He doesn’t fight anyone.  He faces no dangers.  He’s just a fancy royal dude that all the courtly ladies twitter over.  Heroes are guys who face great perils and beat unbeatable odds – not guys using glass shoes to interview potential wives.”

My lady friends did not like this at all.  They argued that Prince Charming saves Cinderella, and that little boys everywhere loved to fantasize about rescuing girls.  “You two obviously haven’t spent any time inside the brain of the average male adolescent.”  I didn’t say this, but I also thought of suggesting they rent some porn to see how boys cast Cinderella in their dreams.

Just to get a reality check, I asked my friend Mike about this, and he was also amused by the idea of boys idolized Prince Charming.  Then I decided I should ask another woman, and picked Susan, my wife.  She suggested that Prince Charming was the metrosexual of his day, and wasn’t a hero.  Now that a creative response!

This got me to thinking and it occurred to me that if we used the same motifs as Cinderella, boys fantasies, especially if they hadn’t reached puberty and XXX brain theater time, might consider The Princess Bride a more realistic fairy tale for their mental television inspiration.  Westley is a hero because he fights the evil Prince Humperdinck.  The key element here is not Buttercup – the hot chick to be saved, but swords.  Boys love swords and sword fights, and the real issue will be whether they want to emulated Wesley or Inigo Montoya.  Before puberty, the majority of fantasies will be about using metal swords and afterwards their dominant thoughts will focus on their fleshy swords.

Look at the whole light saber thing for a modern variation.  I assume young boys have spent far more time pretending to fight with light sabers than thinking about rescuing Princess Leia.  It not that Princess Leia didn’t inspire fantasies in boys, but out of the trillions of cerebral performances that Carrie Fisher’s image has given, damn few involved rescue.  At most, the rescue is setup for the real action, either before or after.

I can see how women get confused.  They think saving the hot chick is the whole point of the story.  But it’s not – it’s the violence.  Boys love violence, and its the dominant fantasy element before sex drives them crazy.  Heroes are the last man standing, the alpha male, the winner of the game, the king of the hill, the slayer of dragons, the dude you don’t want to mess with.  Women are the prizes, and what they plan for their prizes are not elegant banquet dining and courtly romance, but the same plans Prince Humperdinck had.

I think Prince Charming is the fantasy that women have for how they want us men to act.  And there are lots of savvy men out there who know this and are willing to play the game to get what they want, but that doesn’t mean they fantasize about being Prince Charming.  Acting like George Clooney is only the romantic costume we all wished we had to hide our wolfish selves.

Our fantasies aren’t about rescuing women, they are fantasies about competing for women.  The Iliad wasn’t about rescuing Helen, it was a major war fantasy.  How many lines does Helen get as oppose to the number of lines glorifying battle?

If you want to know about the inner life of young dudes, look at the LCD screen in front of their faces – first person shooters, sports and porn.  As males mature, they add in dreams of ambition.  Men and women just aren’t on the same wavelength when it comes to personally created fantasies, or the mass consumption fantasies they buy.

I know Peggy and Heather will think my opinions are the representation of some male deviant minority but I don’t think so.  To make my case, how many males like to go to chick flicks?  When I go it’s because I get to earn points with a female, I get to see lots of beautiful female images on the screen, and its hilarious how they portray men.

Of course the reality is real women are not like Keira Knightley characters, and us guys don’t get to act like Daniel Craig.  Prince Charming is not going to rescue you gals from humdrum life, and we guys don’t get to whip out .45s to solve minor disagreements.  We all have to be who we are.

And by the way Peggy, the dream of finding Prince Charming is based in biology.  Females are programmed to search out the best male provider they can find, and I can easily believe Prince Charming is a universal male archetype that females want in their dreams, and those dreams have their seeds deep in your cells.  And male fantasies of violence and sex also come from biology.  Just watch nature shows to see how males fight for the right to mate.

It would be very interesting if we didn’t have these biological impulses.  If males and females were totally intellectual creatures who dated because of shared interests how would society be different?  Can you imagine what life and fiction would be like?  Without the biological impulse would we ever sacrifice our time, energy and money to raise the next generation?  Without the biological drive would we even think kids as cute and lovable to have around?  Without the biological imperative would women want to be seeded no matter how charming the prince?

Would women be more independent without the Prince Charming programming planted into their brains?  Would men consider women as equal souls if they didn’t have the XXX Cinderella programming in their brains?

Of course, I think male humans would have remained uncivilized chimps if it hadn’t been for the Prince Charming myth.  Lady frogs only expect Prince Charming frogs to croak the loudest.  Lady humans expect men  to act nice, give up their weapons, stay home, guard the kids, and bring home the antelope – with Prince Charming the tune we all try to harmonize with our croaking behaviors.  Instead of bashing heads like mountain goats we’re expected to earn lots money and buy sparkling diamonds to prove our worth.  It’s weird, but it’s still biology.

I think in the end, the higher brain functions that Peggy wants to defend has to deal with sex on a different level.  Most of our lives aren’t about reproduction.  As adults we spend most of our time not thinking about sex, but it still taints our actions.  Women want men to give up their XXX fantasies about women – well ladies, men hate to be typecast as Prince Charming.  These are both very hard roles to play.  Peggy, for you to be right about people not being animals, both genders have to give up their fantasies.  I don’t think that will happen, but it’s what’s needed.

Jim

Where’s The Jazz

My friend Lee pointed out that Rhapsody.com is weak on jazz, so I decided to test it.  I went to Jazz Review and checked the 11 albums that are marked “New” on the Jazz CD Review Database.  Rhapsody only had 5 of the 11.  However, 3 of the 6 that weren’t on Rhapsody were missing from Amazon.com as well.  How obscure are some jazz CDs?

Albums on Rhapsody

  • Future Day by David Finck
  • Night Town by The Hot Club of Detroit
  • I Had the Craziest Dream by David Berger Octet
  • Bluelisted by JW Jones
  • Do5 by Mahogany Frog

Albums not on Rhapsody

  • Dry Bridge Road by Noah Preminger Group
  • Explorations by David Leonhardt Trio
  • Renewal by various
  • Vicky Christina Barcelona soundtrack
  • Home by Kelley Johnson
  • Incandescence by Bill Stewart

Over at JazzTimes.com I found five reviews listed online from their September issue and Rhapsody had 3 of the 5.

  • Here and Gone by David Sanborn (Rhapsody)
  • Encuentro by Afro-Cuban Jazz Project
  • Stompin’ the Blues by Harry Allen-Joe Cohn Quartet (Rhapsody)
  • I Am I Am by JD Allen Trio (Rhapsody)
  • Tenor Talk by Jerry Bergonzi

That’s 8 out of 16, or .500 batting average for Jazz using this simple test.  Not bad, but not anywhere like the Rhapsody’s success with pop music. 

Lee also asked about world music.  I went to RootsWorld.com and checked their first 10 album reviews, and Rhapsody had 7 out of 10.

Albums on Rhapsody

  • Lonquén by Francesca Ancarola
  • Duo by Bibaia
  • Here to Stay by BR6
  • 3 Nights by Zulya and the Children of the Underground
  • Teknochek Collision by Slavic Soul Party!
  • Alevanta! by Benjamin Escoriza
  • Klezmer at the Cotton Club by Helmut Eisel and Band

Albums not on Rhapsody

  • Essai by Bastien Lucas
  • English Country Garden by Jenny McCormick
  • Orm by Sågskära

This really shows how little I know about jazz and world music.  I had only heard of David Sanborn before.  If also shows I’m not making full use of Rhapsody.com.  I could create quite a musical education regimen if I just made myself try one new album a day from diverse musical sources.

I wonder if there are any bloggers out there who are subscribers to Rhapsody that try to review as many albums as they can.  If I was retired, I think I would be tempted to start an “Album of the Day” site.

Jim