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Book Reviews
May. 28th, 2008 11:34 amBooks 21 and 22 of 2008 were:
The Humanoids, by Jack Williamson (1948)
The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz, by Russell Hoban (1973)
The Humanoids
This is a classic, crunchy SF story – at least on the surface. The first 2/3 of the novel reads as a straightforward story about the danger of over-automation. I was actually groaning a bit, inwardly, as I took in the really clumsy extrapolation of future tech. The book is set on a distant planet, in a distant future, yet the main characters are smoking pipes, eating fried eggs, using rotary telephones, and riding bicycles. It was not prepossessing, to say the least.
However, the novel contains enough interesting science speculation to keep things going, and the initially shallow characterization begins to improve. By the time the suspiciously helpful robots show up I was engaged enough to read the remainder of the novel almost in one go. Even then, I was assuming the book was going to turn into a “To Serve Mankind / It’s a Cook Book” story, and it almost does.
In the last few chapters, everything changes. Instead of a conservative crunchy Libertarian SF message about the dangers of luxury and technological ease, the novel becomes positively post-humanist. The earlier stodgy view of the far future as “1948 with more teletype machines” is abandoned, and the characters explore weird landscapes and have duels of will that reminded me of scenes from Dark City or The Matrix.
Highly recommended!
The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz
I picked this book up in a used bookstore several years ago, for the title alone. The back cover has lots of reviews calling it a “modern fable” and a tale for the ages, and the inside cover contains a rave review from Peter S. Beagle.
It is an extremely 70s book. It is set in the “real world,” except in this version of the real world, lions are extinct. The narrative is entirely character driven and there are pages and pages of ruminations about the significance of wheels, father /son relationships, and the nature of maps vs. territories.
The plot, such as it is, is about the son of a mapmaker who manages to summon up the spirit of a lion to plague his father. But, of course, the lion doesn’t really exist in the traditional sense, and it isn’t actually a lion, but rather a symbol. It’s all terribly fraught with symbolism, really, to point where things get a bit silly. It rather reminded me of a Lindsey Anderson movie.
Worth reading, if you’re not looking for a really coherent narrative or characterization.
The Humanoids, by Jack Williamson (1948)
The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz, by Russell Hoban (1973)
The Humanoids
This is a classic, crunchy SF story – at least on the surface. The first 2/3 of the novel reads as a straightforward story about the danger of over-automation. I was actually groaning a bit, inwardly, as I took in the really clumsy extrapolation of future tech. The book is set on a distant planet, in a distant future, yet the main characters are smoking pipes, eating fried eggs, using rotary telephones, and riding bicycles. It was not prepossessing, to say the least.
However, the novel contains enough interesting science speculation to keep things going, and the initially shallow characterization begins to improve. By the time the suspiciously helpful robots show up I was engaged enough to read the remainder of the novel almost in one go. Even then, I was assuming the book was going to turn into a “To Serve Mankind / It’s a Cook Book” story, and it almost does.
In the last few chapters, everything changes. Instead of a conservative crunchy Libertarian SF message about the dangers of luxury and technological ease, the novel becomes positively post-humanist. The earlier stodgy view of the far future as “1948 with more teletype machines” is abandoned, and the characters explore weird landscapes and have duels of will that reminded me of scenes from Dark City or The Matrix.
Highly recommended!
The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz
I picked this book up in a used bookstore several years ago, for the title alone. The back cover has lots of reviews calling it a “modern fable” and a tale for the ages, and the inside cover contains a rave review from Peter S. Beagle.
It is an extremely 70s book. It is set in the “real world,” except in this version of the real world, lions are extinct. The narrative is entirely character driven and there are pages and pages of ruminations about the significance of wheels, father /son relationships, and the nature of maps vs. territories.
The plot, such as it is, is about the son of a mapmaker who manages to summon up the spirit of a lion to plague his father. But, of course, the lion doesn’t really exist in the traditional sense, and it isn’t actually a lion, but rather a symbol. It’s all terribly fraught with symbolism, really, to point where things get a bit silly. It rather reminded me of a Lindsey Anderson movie.
Worth reading, if you’re not looking for a really coherent narrative or characterization.
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