Christmas in the Stars

A friend of mine sent me this link - and I thought it was worth sharing.

Christmas in the Stars: Star Wars Christmas Album 

 

You can even listen to free samples of the tracks, and hear C3PO and R2D2 sing the fantastic title track "Christmas in the Stars". Pity the album is out of print and so damn expensive now!

 

Also on the topic of Christmas, I highly recommend checking out StarShipSofa podcast no. 56, which has narrated a China Meiville story called "Tis the Season" - a really hilarious short Christmas story.

 

I'm looking forward to January - until then I hardly have time to breath (yet alone read all the books I have waiting for me). Last weekend was a close friend's wedding, and this coming weekend is my sister-in-law's wedding (which seems to be taking up a *lot* of our time at the moment, since my wife is Matron of Honour). Christmas is a few days after that, and we'll be travelling between Wonthaggi and Melbourne for most of that day. Soon after that is my other sister-in-law's birthday, then New Years Day. And finally, on 4 January, my wife and I will be escaping all this craziness and going to Prato, Italy for four weeks to undertake a short-term international study program called "Dante's Medieval World" (she's taking the unit for credit towards her degree, and I'm auditing, i.e. tagging along). I was reminded yesterday that I can't take a suitcase full of books, and that I'll need to ration some space for clothes. Damn.

 

Hopefully when I next have time to write a blog post I'll have finished James Blish's A Case of Conscience and can write about that. I've had so little time to read, I'm still only half-way through the short book. So far it has been interesting, though perhaps a bit full of long-winded dialogue. Anyway, tea break is over, now back to work - these Harry Potter audio books won't process themselves...

Adventures in Pulp SF - Four Wolves

Yesterday I worked a fantastic shift in my library's Rare Books Collection, checking a collection of Astounding Science Fiction from the 1940s and 1950s against our current holdings of the pulp sf magazine, to see if purchasing the items for sale would fill any gaps. It turned out we have everything in the collection for sale, and in much better condition too - our pulp sf collection is quite impressive!

For those interested, the website of Monash University Library's Rare Books Collection is http://lib.monash.edu.au/rare/. A virtual exhibition of our rare science fiction pulp collection is also online at http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/exhibitions/scifi/xscifi.html, though it is a bit old, having been made in 1999.

Anyway, when I got home from work I decided to read a few Gene Wolfe short stories that have been waiting for me: 

Gene Wolfe, 'Four Wolves,' Amazing Science Fiction, May 1983.

'Four Wolves' is a collection of four, apparently unconnected short stories. The first, 'My Book', is collected in Endangered Species; the second and third, 'At the Volcano’s Lip' and 'In the Mountains', are collected in Storeys From the Old Hotel; and the final story, 'The River', is uncollected, and can only be found in this issue of Amazing Science Fiction.

All four stories are about a page or less in length, and each is preceded by a small illustration. It is amazing to see what Wolfe can accomplish in such short pieces, and how even his shortest stories can leave you in awe. I thought it was funny, however, that these stories appeared in an sf pulp magazine, since I wouldn't consider any of them to be science fiction. For those not aware, these reviews / summaries are spoiler heavy.

1. My Book

Beautiful and poetic, 'My Book' is narrated by a writer beginning a book, but deciding to start with the last word (the most important word, in his opinion). From there the writer moves backward, writing the penultimate, antepenultimate, preantepenultimate, transpreantepenultimate words, and so on. The finished product, as it turns out, is 'My Book' itself. Wolfe's writing in this short piece is amazing and hypnotic, with the story testifying to the unpredictable adventure of authorship.

By the way, does anyone know if "transpreantepenultimate" is actually a word? While I can't find it in the Oxford English Dictionary, I can find its predecessors (or successors, perhaps). Nevertheless, it's a fantastic word - I shall attempt to use it regularly in everyday conversation.

2. In the Mountains

A man who lives with his wife in the mountains tells of another couple who stayed in the city because they feared bears. The narrator believes that living in the city has destroyed their health, and is the reason that their children “have not turned out well.” As I read it, the revelation at the end is that the supposed bear tracks were actually elk tracks, hence their fear was unfounded, and they ruined their lives because of it.

3. At the Volcano’s Lip

A man and his wife visit the site of a volcanic eruption, and he compares the power of the blast to that of an atomic bomb. The story ends on a foreboding tone, perhaps regarding the danger of nuclear weapons. There's not a lot else to say about this one, it wasn't my favourite of the four.

4. The River

This story is certainly the odd one out, since it is narrated in the third-person, not the first, and is quite clearly fantasy. Siith, the Infinite Stream, is an uncrossable river – on one side are the “countries shown on maps”, and on the other, “lands that no map shows”. Althor-elmil, Lord of Siith, has navies that destroy any ship trying to cross the river from the unmapped region, taking some of their crew as slaves, and casting the rest overboard. These castaways, who can turn up on the shore or in the wells of the mapped region, are described as “blood-drinkers” and “hairy men” – vampires and werewolves perhaps? Maybe this is the reason why those on the unmapped region are attempting to cross the river, but those on the mapped region are not. In this way, it is a lot like the relationship between the planets Green and Blue in Wolfe’s Book of the Short Sun, where Green is inhabited by the inhumi (vampires), and Blue is the refuge of the humans from the Whorl. At the end of 'The River' we find that Althor-elmil has been creating flying machines to further his domain, but these are taken by Marhoon, Lord of the Air.

"The Legend of St. Ignatz" and "Article of Faith"

I listened to two more fantastic science fiction short stories the other day. I chose them because they sounded like they would address religious themes, and was pleasantly surprised to find that both stories have priests as protagonists (and hence, are relevant to my honours thesis).

Samantha Henderson, "The Legend of Saint Ignatz the Provider"

A brilliantly written, and darkly amusing, short story. The narrative which follows Ignatz - a corrupt, alcoholic priest - is broken up by excerpts from the "legend" which becomes of his life after he is beatified. Neither the priest nor the Church come off particularly well in this story, since both are corrupt and greedy, with little concern for others. The story seemed a little unbalanced, because there was no positive representation of the clergy - the priest and his contacts higher-up are very disagreeable. However, a couple of peripheral characters, who we know to be Christian, are presented positively, and greatly dislike the behaviour of the drunken priest.

I believe the primary goal of the story is humor and irony, rather than a serious commentary on the Church (though Church corruption and perhaps the process of beatification are criticised). The story is also funny because Henderson is, according to her website, a church office coordinator. Didn't see that one coming.

Click for full text (via Ideomancer) or audio (via Escape Pod).


Mike Resnick, "Article of Faith"

This story, nominated for a Hugo award in 2009, tells of a robot, hired to clean a small church, who comes to believe in God after discussing Christianity with the priest, listening to his sermons, and reading the Bible. The story is told from the perspective of the church's priest, who is very happy to talk to the robot and pleased at his interest in God - until the priest angrily declares that the robot cannot be a member of his parish because he has no soul. When the robot attends the church service regardless, the congregation is outraged. After talking with the robot, the priest encourages the congregation to consider allowing him to join them, since he expresses a genuine desire to worship God. The intolerance of the parishioners, however, leads them to kill the robot, whereupon the priest resigns and becomes a carpenter.

I found the sudden introduction of anti-robot sentiment to be unprecedented and unusual, since there is no indication of it before the priest's angry outburst at the robot - before which point he is eager to share his faith with him. The story is also awkwardly heavy with allusions to the robot being a Christ-like martyr for his faith. Most interesting to me is how the (science-fictional) dilemma the priest finds himself in causes him to renounce his calling and leave the church. He comes to realise that the church is inherently intolerant - indeed, they are violently so - and this revelation changes him. While he doesn't seem to fully renounce his faith and disbelieve in God, he certainly ceases his devout religiosity. In this respect, I found the story to be rather anti-religious, since all the church-goers are portrayed as violent and intolerant cold-blooded killers.

Click for full text (via Jim Baen's Universe) or audio (via Escape Pod).


I've started reading James Blish's A Case of Conscience, which is great so far. I'm just trying to find the time to read some more! Also, it's been a while since I've read any Gene Wolfe, which I realised today when I was discussing The Book of the New Sun with a coworker at the library (who I convinced to read it, and who absolutely adores the book so far). Perhaps I should gobble down some more Wolfe short stories...

Elizabeth Bear's Dust

Just finished reading Dust by Elizabeth Bear. It was overall a quite enjoyable book, though I did not find myself particularly attached to any of the characters, not even the protagonists, Perceval and Rien, who perhaps weren't as well developed as they could have been. Nevertheless, the story was interesting, and the world that Bear created is immense and creative - I look forward to seeing it explored more in the rest of the series (Dust is the first book in a planned trilogy).

The story begins with Perceval, an Exalt from Engine, being taken into captivity by Ariane of Rule, who mercilessly amputates Perceval's wings in order to humiliate her. Rien, a servant in Rule, is given the responsibility of caring for Perceval while she is in prison. It is soon revealed to Rien that Perceval is her half-sister, and Rien orchestrates their escape from Rule, thereby saving Perceval from certain death at the hands of the war-mongering Ariane. The two escape and begin their adventure through the intergenerational spaceship known as Jacob's Ladder.

Elsewhere on the massive spacecraft, powerful artificial intelligences, calling themselves "angels", battle for control over Jacob's Ladder. The most powerful of these, Jacob Dust, has an obsession with Perceval. Unlike Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun (with which Dust bears a great many similarities), where the ship's AIs are called "gods" because they created a pantheistic religion aboard the ship in order that they be worshipped and obeyed, the reasons behind Bear's AIs being referred to as "Angels" and "Gods" is never clear.

We do, however, discover that Jacob's Ladder was launched as a project of forced evolution - the one paragraph blurb of Dust's sequel, Chill, indicates that the project was orchestrated by a religious cult - though this is not particularly clear in Dust itself, where the mixture of evolutionary science and Judeo-Christian religion is awkward and for the most part unexplained. Furthermore, it is often unclear whether the religious symbolism (e.g. the name "Jacob's Ladder" itself, and the desire to attain "divinity" through forced evolution) is intended literally or metaphorically. To further confuse matters, of the 29 chapter epigraphs (!!), three are from the "New Evolutionist Bible" (apparently a translation of the Christian Bible which actually appears in the book itself) and one is from the "New Evolutionist Funeral Service". So far as I can tell (through much googling), these are entirely fictional creations of Bear. The builders of the Jacob's Ladder, we surmise, must be these "New Evolutionists". Hopefully this will be developed more in-depth in the next two books.

The only other gripe I have is that the ending seemed to come out of nowhere [spoilers ahoy]. When Rien eats the plumb, containing one of the AIs in virus form, she alters the virus and transmits the code to Perceval, and through Perceval's connection with Dust, manages to re-write Dust's programming and free Perceval from his clutches. Upon essentially merging herself with Dust and the virus, Rein's physical body and mecha suit suddenly disintigrate (turn to dust - how poetic, if scientifically implausible), and a new super-powerful AI is born. What I fail to comprehend is how Rien, who until a few days earlier had spent her entire life as a servant, was suddenly able to re-write what must have been the incredibly complex programming of the virus and then re-write the programming of Dust and all other AI in Jacob's Ladder in a matter of seconds. It seemed that Bear was pulling a rabbit out of a hat with this out of nowhere ending (much like the sword out of the hat resolution in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets). I had seen no indication that Rien possessed the amazing abilities that she displayed at the end in her defeat / reprogramming of Dust.

Nevertheless, the story was quite intriguing, and enjoyable to read. Bear's writing can be lucid and poetic, though this isn't maintained throughout, and some things, such as the hermaphrodite sex scene and the recurring theme of incest, just made me cringe. Perhaps that makes me intolerant and closed minded, but I couldn't bring myself to get celebrate a romance between half-sisters. I did, however, find the blend of science fiction and fantasy to be fascinating - I love writing that blends these genres (as Wolfe does), and Bear does this very well. The interplay between science and religion in the story had me wanting to read more. I'll have to read the sequel, Chill, when it is released next year.

More info on Dust and Bear's other writing can be found at her website here. Now, to start reading James Blish's A Case of Conscience...

Podcasts; "Come All Ye Faithful" by Robert J. Sawyer

After listening to StarShipSofa, I decided to scour the internet and find what other sf audio podcasts were out there. Lo and behold, I discovered Escape Pod, and its fantasy-centred sibling PodCastle. (The same team also does a horror podcast, Pseudopod, but horror isn't really my gig).

Episode 220 of Escape Pod has a narration of Robert J. Sawyer's "Come All Ye Faithful", a fascinating sf story which deals with religion. With the protagonist and narrator being a priest, the story was of particular interest to me due to my upcoming honours thesis on priests as protagonists in sf. The story follows the only Catholic priest on Mars as he sets off from the colony of Bradbury (fantastic choice of name by the way) to investigate an apparent sighting of the Virgin Mary elsewhere on the red planet. Arriving at the location of the apparent sighting (made by a popular televangelist via telescope from Earth), the priest looks around and finds nothing but sand. Reporting back to the Vatican, however, the priest fabricates a fanciful story about a miraculous encounter with the Virgin, thereby corroborating the televangelist's vision. As a result of the priest's lie, many Catholics pilgrimage to Mars and stay there permanently. We are led to pity these poor religious fools, who base their lives upon lies - fabrications made to reinforce their faith.

I was thoroughly enjoying the story up to the point where the priest fabricated his story - a turn which I found very bizarre, primarily because it did not seem to be in keeping with the priest's character. The priest is not only a devout Catholic, but also a scientist - an expert astronomer. He is intelligent, friendly, and, for most of the story anyway, quite likable. Needless to say, his fabrication is a gross violation of scientific method. It also seems incomprehensible to me why someone who genuinely believes in miraculous visions, as the priest claims he does, would feel the need to fabricate one, and lie so openly about it. The logical conclusion is that the priest must, then, be insincere in his faith - living a lie he does not truly believe. Were his faith to be genuine, he would surely have believed that the Catholic religion could stand up on its own, without the need to fabricate such miracles - though perhaps this was the point. When he makes up his story, he seems to be reluctantly accepting a necessary part of his job - as though it were a longstanding tradition for Catholic priests to corroborate false miracles. In this respect, Catholicism is presented as a faith predicated on lies - a religion which relies upon fabrications to keep on going.

Although the Mars scientists and colonists are, for the most part, presented as bigots, their condescension on the priest and his religion turn out to be well founded. Far from breaking down traditional barriers between "science" and "religion" (or "rationality" and "faith"), the story ends up reinforcing this irritating and all too common stereotype. The idea of a truly devout priest who is also an intelligent scientist seems to be too much for Sawyer to handle, so he presents the priest as being full of contradictions. The priest cannot be both faithful and scientific, rational and spiritual, so he must compromise on one (or both) of these things.

Overall, religion (Catholicism specifically) does not come off well in this story. The priest is a duplicitous liar who feels it is necessary to fabricate miracles in order to maintain his religion. The irritating televangelist (who just made me cringe) is thrown in just to make religion even less likable - not that the story needed any help in this respect. All the story serves to do, in the end, is reinforce the false dichotomy between "rationality" ("truth") and "faith" ("lies"). Nevertheless, it as an interesting read (or listen), and would be worth checking out, even if only for the fantastic jokes, such as the simile to "farting in an airlock" and the priest's mock-relief that he isn't "preaching to the converted".