Pym

Mat Johnson's Pym is many things; sure, it's a satirical novel on race in America, both our obsession with it and how it drives American society, but it's also a fun fantasy novel that can be read entirely without context (here, I'm thinking of a sheltered twelve year old, hundreds of years from now, because it's tough of me to conceive of someone reading this and missing the overtones and allusions)

Pym opens with the protagonist, Chris Jaynes, having just been denied tenure at a historically white college in upstate NY (here, I picture something like Bard, or New Paltz) because despite being the sole black male professor, he doesn't behave as he is expected to. That is, he doesn't join the school's diversity committee, and he'd rather teach the whole canon of American literature, rather than just African-American literature.

Immediately after his firing, Jaynes is thrown a bone -- a slave narrative that confirms the truth of Edgar Allen Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Purportedly written by Pym's companion on his voyage, Dirk Peters (the man selling the manuscript interjects, "Who ever heard of a black man named 'Dirk'?", which is a question that could be raised about Jaynes' childhood friend, Garth) the manuscript offers insight into both the mysterious ending of Poe's novel, as well as events leading up to it. Jaynes immediately attempts to venture to Antarctica to confirm, enlisting the help of a his cousin (a marine entrepreneur), and an ex-girlfriend (a lawyer).

When the makeshift crew Jaynes hastily assembles arrives in Antarctica, Pym really hits its stride. With the progression of the plot, the racial satire is ratcheted up, and the parallels with Poe's novel shine through. Pym's progression even includes a similar ambiguous ending.

My edition concludes with sixteen discussion questions, which I'm not going to get into here. I would recommend this novel, even if you haven't read Poe's. While I did, and I thought my experience was enhanced because of this, it isn't strictly necessary.

Neuromancer

What can I say about Neuromancer that hasn't been said already? It's one of those novels that nearly any description is going to use either "seminal" or "groundbreaking". Not to say this isn't a good novel -- it is, I'd compare it favorably to any of the sci-fi I'd read recently -- but reading something like this nearly 30 (!) years after it was published, one tends to focus on where the author's vision of the future lacks verisimilitude, rather than where he was eerily prescient.

Despite the above, Neuromancer still retains its power. Worth picking up.

One of the necessary settings in a novel like this is an unpoliced Wild West area, where drugs and technology flow freely, and the opening setting of Chiba City in Japan may be the archetype of that.

The opening setting of Chiba City in Japan, a world of drugs, gangs, nightclubs, arcades, with little to no police presence could be the model for this genre; a Wild West-type area is needed in cyberpunk, and this certainly is it. Our protagonist, Case, is an archetype, too. So is our enforcer, Molly. While the plot may not be too unusual, the overall goal is an interesting one.

Again, Neuromancer is absolutely worthwhile, particularly for its treatment of artificial intelligence.

The Windup Girl

Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl reminds me why I love science fiction, I think. It's set a few hundred years in a not totally implausible future, and contains an inventive plot, memorable characters, an immersive setting, and a denouement leaving room for a sequel, if necessary. Unfortunately, the "not totally implausible" future seems almost alarmist on Bacigalupi's part -- "if we're not vigilant, something like this could happen", as opposed to cyberpunk dystopias, which just seem to be, rather than requiring the downward spiral that the world of The Windup Girl does.

Bacigalupi's future Bangkok is richly detailed and imagined. The fruits of genetic engineering are seamlessly integrated without too much exposition, and the future Thai political structure is unfolded slowly, over the course of a few chapters. With a world like this, there's a lot of attention to be paid to setting, and our author does a good job there.

Plot-wise, The Windup Girl skips between several diverse characters working towards different ends. Some of them see the situation more clearly than others, and of course there's some information asymmetry there. The ending isn't totally satisfying, more of a setup to a sequel, but it resolves nearly all the plot threads.

The Windup Girl  is a fun, well-plotted science fiction novel. Is that enough to overcome the slight preachiness of the environmental message? Is it possible to write a novel in this setting without having it come across as slightly preachy? Would anyone write a novel in this setting that isn't intended to be preachy? Regardless of the answers to those questions, this is certainly a book worth picking up.

More than Human

One of the problems of reading groundbreaking works years after they've received their acclaim is that what they brought to the table can seem a little routine. This is unfortunately the case with Theodore Sturgeon's More than Human, which may have seemed revolutionary when it was first published, but now seems like merely a very good science fiction novel.

More than Human isn't a typical sci-fi novel; like Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, it concerns the next phase of human evolution. Like Clarke, Sturgeon focuses on the unlocking of the potential of the human mind -- telepathy, teleportation, telekinesis, mind control, things of that nature. They're very different novels, though, and I would say Clarke's is more interesting in its setup, while Sturgeon's is better in execution.

More than Human is composed of three parts -- "The Fabulous Idiot", "Baby is Three", and "Morality." "Baby is Three" was a previously published novella, and the preceding and anteceding parts were composed solely for the novel. I enjoyed "The Fabulous Idiot" the most, because it's the most straightforward -- the later two can be a little unclear, and demand that a lot of the action happen "offscreen", without necessarily even hinting at the general direction.

There are times when Sturgeon's prose, set pieces, and dialogue seem a little dated, even for something that was written in the 1950s. That said, the concept is novel for the time, and the execution is good.

It's tough to level too much criticism at a novel you've enjoyed, especially when it's critically acclaimed. I don't want to give the impression that this is a bad novel, or something to be avoided. Any reader of fifties sci-fi should absolutely pick it up. It's tough to see this as something that took science fiction into the mainstream, or that took science fiction into the arena of literature, but given the way the subject matter is handled, I can see it if I squint.