Skyfall - Harry Harrison

Before you ask: NO it isn't a James Bond book and NO it isn't the Alien prequel.  

 
Now that we have that out of the way I can get on with the book review.  Firstly, I have only ever read one other Harry Harrison novel.  That novel is Make Room! Make Room! which the movie Soylent Green was 'based' on, however was pretty much an entirely separate entity seeing as the whole point of the movie was shifted.  Spoiler alert... Soylent Green is people.  But not according to the book which was well written but kind of left me hanging on the whole cannibal front seeing as Soylent Green is NOT people.  In the book at least.  But I digress.  The point is that I looked at the cover of this book and wondered what lies it was spinning about it.  Maybe there isn't any spaceships and it's actually on Mars!  I damn well hoped for destruction and death, as the cover seems to promise.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I did not have high hopes for this novel.  The thing that drew me to in the first place was that it was perfect.  Not one crease in the spine, no dog eared pages and not a mark on it.  Pretty good for a book printed in 1979.  The covers were smooth and even, just like I had plucked it new off the shelf.  At once I wondered if it had ever actually been read, if anyone else had even intended to read it. Maybe it was an unwanted gift or surplus stock.  I figured that if anyone were to take this book's virginity it ought to be me.

When I say that Harry Harrison is a boring writer I think I am misunderstood.  He has a style of writing that feels as if it were written by a supercomputer, and as if he doesn't really understand human emotion or interaction.  It is dull, but factual.  I really didn't know if I could get through this book.  At one stage I was sneakily perusing my other books just in case I had a moment of weakness and gave it up.

Then it hit me.  It was like a tonne of bricks.  HOLY HELL. Characters that I almost hated for their tedious and dull existence became alive.  No Patrick! Don't let him go out into the vacuum!! Coretta you tramp, good on you for getting your rocks off! At one stage I was reading it in the work tea room when I had to cry out because a character was about to get wasted and he didn't even see it coming.  I was distraught.  I think my co-workers think I need therapy.

I honestly don't know how he did it.  The words still had the same sterile and automated feeling but something had changed.  I cared for the characters, I related to them.  I am stuffed if I know why.  I guess I could call him a 'Hump Author', not unlike J.R.R. Tolkien.  One of those people that insist on boring the hell out of you for the first 60 pages or so but if you can just get over the 'hump' it all comes together to be something spectacular.

The story is based around a joint venture by the Americans and Russians to create an ultimate power source but sending a giant rocket, filled with fuel and uranium and weighing 20,000 tonnes into orbit around earth to capture and deliver energy from the sun to Earth.  What could possibly go wrong.  A fucking lot, apparently.  It is one of those stories that Murphy tends to have a big part in, as he screws all the characters over probably laughing and he does it.  In some parts the inevitability is painful, but worth the perseverance.    

 If you are a persistent reader such as myself and if you can make it through the boredom then an exciting and, admittedly stressful, story awaits.  And trust me, it is worth the struggle. 

4 out of 5 stars

 

Science Fiction - Pure Fantasy?

As a lover of Science Fiction I often find myself standing in frustration in the middle of bookstores, hands on my hips wondering where in the hell the Sci-Fi novels are kept.  One thing is for certain: they are not in the Sci-Fi section.  As I am sure many of you would have noticed the wonderful and unique category of Sci-Fi is being overwhelmed by popular Fantasy novels. If the book stores were to be believed Science Fiction and Fantasy are synonymous and interchangeable. 

For some reason this idea both confuses and infuriates me.  It may be due to the fact that true Science Fiction is slowly being pushed out and replaced with books I simply have no fancy for.  In many cases I find it quite difficult to even find the classic Sci-Fi authors such as Asimov and Philip K. Dick amongst the sea of Hobbits and dragons.  I attended a trivia night last year that had a round claiming that ten pictures depicted aliens and we were to name where they were from.  Maybe it is just me but I don't consider Teen Wolf to be any kind of alien.

Perhaps I am just a perfectionist with little tolerance for deviation from what I believe are true Science Fiction novels and movies.  To me Sci-Fi is time and space travel to strange and distant lands, alien invasion and contact, alterations in the fabric of our universe and the laws that govern them, robots and androids and all they stand for, dystopic and utopic worlds.  What I believe it are not under this umbrella includes magic, fairies and dragons with no scientific basis.  I will admit there is bound to be some kind of overlap in the two genres but never will a novel such as I Robot be fantasy as Lord of the Rings will never be Science Fiction.  One has absolute logic and science and the other controlled by magic and whimsy.

I am not saying that I don't wish to see any Fantasy novels grace our shelves, I am wishing that bookstores and the like would make my life easier and separate the two, or at the very least have some Science Fiction in the Sci-Fi section. .  Nothing is more disheartening than walking into a bookstore and finding a huge Sci-Fi section filled with Fantasy. I think I will go and read my books now instead of getting all grumpy and telling kids to get off my damn lawn...

Not Just Another Book...

I was at a friend's 25th birthday BBQ recently when I heard the very thing that makes my heart sink most of all.  We had been chatting casually about all manner of things, including music, movies, which actors were hottest etc. The usual chit chat.  I almost missed it as I was in another conversation but my brain sparked my attention away when I heard someone say, 'I love my kindle.  Now I don't have useless books lying around.' 

At first I was too shocked to reply, until I heard another voice join the chorus 'I know, they just sit around and collect dust.'  How could they say that?  How could they be so callous to such wonderful and dear friends?  Isn't the dustiness just a reflection of the time you have had it?  Of whom it came from?  But how can you pass on a book, with all its beauty and meaning if it is just computer code? 

This was pretty much exactly what I blurted out at them, they seemed slightly taken aback. 
It became pretty clear to me then that books were in more trouble than I realised.  These people were only a year my junior and already they were waving them away with a smile on their faces.  No more packing up those heavy books every time you moved.  No more space taken up by something you read once and never look at again. 

The more the conversation progressed the more disheartened I became.  I thought of the books on my bookshelf in my attic and wondered how people could be so callous.  They weren't dust collectors taking up space.  I would never read them once and then throw them aside.  Even in my last trip overseas I had downloaded some novels onto my phone, as carrying that many books would have been difficult, what with all the other junk I was lugging about.  Despite that on my return flight to Australia I just couldn't help myself.  I needed a physical, tangible, ACTUAL book.  And I got one too. 

A couple of days later it was still bugging me.  This little nagging twitch in my brain that would just not let it be.  I needed to take action, so I called my Dad.  If there is one thing to be counted on it is that my Dad will understand.  As we talked and complained about this apparent new order with reading we decided something: a book is never really a book.  It may look like a book, feel like a book and even sound like a book, whatever it is they sound like.  But it is never just a book.

The thing is that the human brain never sees something, say a car, and says 'Oh, that is a car'.  The human brain is far too complex to be so simple and straight forward.  It sees the car and instantly recalls a number of situations where it has seen that car before.  It may recall an advertisement, or maybe a friend owns a similar car. 

The point is this is the same with books.  I go up to my attic and see The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham.  Instantly I am reminded of the day I found that book sitting in my Dad's closet, like a little lost treasure. I remember talking to my Dad about it and imagining how I would make my house triffid proof.  I remember giving it to my wonderful boyfriend when he was looking for something to read and I remember watching him smile as he read it.  I remember so much more than lugging it from house to house with all of my other books.  The funny thing is, I don't remember that at all.

In the end I feel sad for those who miss out on this wonderful memory bank.  Every book I own has its own memories.  I have read some of them more than once and each time I find myself making a new memory of it.  The best part is giving someone a book.  Because it is never giving just a book, it is giving the potential of so much more...




I would love to hear your fond book memories, please let me know by leaving a comment!