Over the years, I certainly had heard of, and read of, Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 in various places, I thought, I almost knew the story. [Read the above Wikipedia link for a summary of the novel.]
At first, the novel seemed like the typical dystopian view of the world. Then it dawned on me, that most of the other ramblings that I've read of such dystopian warnings have been based on this novel and on Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The more you read about the wall-to-wall TVs, the interactive programming to keep the viewers (consumers) disengaged from the reality, the bombers going overhead to a distant war that no one in the current society cares about, the lack of critical thinking on the part of the majority of the citizenry, etc. the more I can't help but wonder if we are in the process of becoming that dystopian society in this 21st century. The Brave New World was written in 1931 and Fahrenheit 451 in 1953. Yet both authors had had the foresight to think of various ways of technology could be used to the detriment of the society. And, those technologies barely existed back in the authors' times.
The silencing of the intellectuals, hunting down of the accused like escaped criminals, the TV networks working with the authorities to gloss over the realities, ... we are not too far away. What that means in today's society is that it doesn't take an iron-fisted world dictatorship to bring about a dystopia. The well-meaning technologists along with the relentlessly innovating scientists employed by the money-grubbing corporations can steer all of us in the path towards this dystopia all in the name of making a buck and we in the society don't recognize it until it is too late.
Do we not support the intrusion of a little bit of privacy in the name of security? Do we not say "support the troops" regardless of the cause of the war? Do we, the people, really know the real causes of the wars that the old generals in concert with the "military industrial complex" dream of in order the justify their own existence? Do we not nod our heads when the TV talking heads soothe our own sensibilities? We read tweets, not books. We read blogs, not literature. We read article-clips that fit in our Apps, not well-researched articles in periodicals and journals.
Not only should this book be read several times, it should be re-printed every decade with parallels from the current times alongside very page.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Ender's Game
The front cover of Orson Scott Card's book Ender's Game says that it is the author's definitive edition and that it's a winner of both Hugo and Nebula awards.
Read the above wikipedia link for a synopsis or a plot summary of the story. In its entirety the story is quite good and original. It flows nicely and the story makes sense in itself. However, I have several issues:
After the humans have been attacked twice by the buggers, the general public, and even those who train to fight with the enemy don't seem to know much about them. That is completely contrary to what would happen if an alien invasion were to take place. The first thing that everyone would find out would be all the extraneous details such as what do they look like, what do they eat, how do they talk, how would you kill one, what's inside them, where is their brain, where is their weakest point, etc. etc. At the end of the story, we do find out that those who were in the previous fights did know sufficient details and did have pictures and videos. Why aren't those being released? At least to the trainees? I guess, they didn't have embedded reporters like in present-day wars. This, in my view, the author's refusal to let in an important detail early-on in the story but that would have shaped the story better, IMHO.
The human race, after the first invasion, got technologically better at developing really cool stuff like instantaneous communication across light years of distance and a bomb that totally destroys everything, yet they need a child to command the whole fleet? Seriously? I have a difficult time swallowing the strategy of training a bunch of children from 6 years on in order to command a space fleet at the age of about 17 or so. It isn't like any organization, least of all the military, to give up the command level positions to a bunch of kids. And, in the final battle, Ender didn't make a series of 500 mega-decisions in 15 seconds ... he just made a kill-all decision because he was pissed. BFD.
Any space-faring race, no matter how much mind-share they have, needs a way to keep the history, pass on the knowledge to the next generation, organize, etc. They must develop a communication system, at least, between generations. The claim that they don't understand another race's communications or written words, etc is quite far-fetched. Fine, even if they don't understand another species' communication method, they should be able to see the difference between a herd of antelopes running around and a bunch of ape-looking animals driving space ships! I guess, that's why this is (supposedly) a thought provoking novel, but you don't become a space-faring species by thinking alone with a single mind. You need different ideas to clash and debates and such and that means more than one mind and that means there must be a way to put forth opposing ideas and view points. Whatever!
Written in the early 80s, Card seems to have over estimated the power of what a couple of teenagers can do by blogging from their parent's basement. :-)
This is the thing with me and science fiction novels. I tend to find holes in the theories. But, if you ignore the holes and go along with the claims, then this novel is organized and presented really well. Anyone writing such a story in today's environment would have tried to tie the characters into the military tactics of today's wars and the buggers to the international terrorists.
Read the above wikipedia link for a synopsis or a plot summary of the story. In its entirety the story is quite good and original. It flows nicely and the story makes sense in itself. However, I have several issues:
After the humans have been attacked twice by the buggers, the general public, and even those who train to fight with the enemy don't seem to know much about them. That is completely contrary to what would happen if an alien invasion were to take place. The first thing that everyone would find out would be all the extraneous details such as what do they look like, what do they eat, how do they talk, how would you kill one, what's inside them, where is their brain, where is their weakest point, etc. etc. At the end of the story, we do find out that those who were in the previous fights did know sufficient details and did have pictures and videos. Why aren't those being released? At least to the trainees? I guess, they didn't have embedded reporters like in present-day wars. This, in my view, the author's refusal to let in an important detail early-on in the story but that would have shaped the story better, IMHO.
The human race, after the first invasion, got technologically better at developing really cool stuff like instantaneous communication across light years of distance and a bomb that totally destroys everything, yet they need a child to command the whole fleet? Seriously? I have a difficult time swallowing the strategy of training a bunch of children from 6 years on in order to command a space fleet at the age of about 17 or so. It isn't like any organization, least of all the military, to give up the command level positions to a bunch of kids. And, in the final battle, Ender didn't make a series of 500 mega-decisions in 15 seconds ... he just made a kill-all decision because he was pissed. BFD.
Any space-faring race, no matter how much mind-share they have, needs a way to keep the history, pass on the knowledge to the next generation, organize, etc. They must develop a communication system, at least, between generations. The claim that they don't understand another race's communications or written words, etc is quite far-fetched. Fine, even if they don't understand another species' communication method, they should be able to see the difference between a herd of antelopes running around and a bunch of ape-looking animals driving space ships! I guess, that's why this is (supposedly) a thought provoking novel, but you don't become a space-faring species by thinking alone with a single mind. You need different ideas to clash and debates and such and that means more than one mind and that means there must be a way to put forth opposing ideas and view points. Whatever!
Written in the early 80s, Card seems to have over estimated the power of what a couple of teenagers can do by blogging from their parent's basement. :-)
This is the thing with me and science fiction novels. I tend to find holes in the theories. But, if you ignore the holes and go along with the claims, then this novel is organized and presented really well. Anyone writing such a story in today's environment would have tried to tie the characters into the military tactics of today's wars and the buggers to the international terrorists.
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