What the Future Holds
One of the most undervalued, yet interesting genres of literature asks a simple question: What If? Most people call it science fiction. Some people prefer speculative fiction. The title doesn't really matter. The creative speculation about how today's issues will affect the distant and not so distant future fascinates me.
I'll admit I was reluctant to start reading science fiction books. I saw all the geeky boys walking to the back of the book store and knew I could never join their ranks. It just wasn't proper.
Thankfully, one of those geek boys was my best friend and forced me to read a few fantasy novels. As an avid lover of fairy tales and all things "princess" I felt I'd come home. For a long time I focused on fantasy, lapping up the castles and dragons, the politics and intrigues, yearning for a time past where magic ruled the land.
I still wouldn't read science fiction. Robots and space ships? Time hopping through the Delta quadrant with an R-532 type doohickey? Does it get any duller?
Reading fantasy and abhorring science fiction soon become a big problem for me. The two genres are distinctly different, yet the lines are often blurred by authors who abhor classifications and boundaries. You can start a book that looks like pure fantasy, only to find it takes place on an alien world and "magic" is just advanced technology.
My almost accidental foray into science fiction soon led to a full fledged immersion in a genre I never knew existed: feminist sci-fi. These stories don't usually feature robots or space cowboys. Instead, they take a look at the world today and speculate about its future. Where are we headed as a race? What role will religion, gender and science play in the future? Here are some mini-reviews of a few of the more worthwhile books I've come across.
Snare by Katherine Kerr
Ok, so the American cover makes it look like nachos with an extra side of cheese, but Snare is one of my favorite books, period. I picked it up in the UK, where the cover made it appear to be set in the far past instead of the far future, so I was happily reading along in the belief I was being a good little fantasy reader. It slowly evolves into an obvious sci-fi book that explores all sorts of issues: gender roles, linguistics, and conservation.
Kerr is an excellent writer who consistently creates sweeping worlds with believable characters. She keeps her writing firmly rooted in reality with her extensive knowledge of languages and her extrapolation of how speech patterns may evolve.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves an intriguing plot and excellent characters.
Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon
More straight sci-fi than speculative fiction, Moon manages to write a whole story around one elderly lady who decides she doesn't need an overbearing society monitoring her every move. By throwing out the idea of a young protagonist, Moon takes a lot of risks. Ofelia is in her 80's with all the aches and pains associated with that great age, so she simply isn't capable of grand adventures. She lives in a colony that's about to be evacuated. She doesn't want to leave, so she does what any rebel would do: hides away until it's too late for her to go.
In a book like this it's hard to avoid a little drag. The first half has almost no dialogue, but instead presents the intriguing idea of what a person does when she's completely alone in a fully operational town.
Things start to get interesting when an alien race discovers her and she must befriend them or be killed.
If you're looking for something a little different, this is definitely worth a read. If you need lots of action, you'll want to skip it.
The Visitor by Sheri S. Tepper
I have a love/hate relationship with Tepper books. She has a wild imagination beyond anything I've ever encountered, but she is so full of strong political beliefs that they often overshadow her stories. With a prolific library under her belt, it was hard for me to choose just one book to highlight. I finally settled on The Visitor because it feeds into one of our culture's more popular current fears: an asteroid hit.
Hundreds of years after an asteroid hit, a young girl discovers the diary of one of her ancestors, the woman who first saw the asteroid. Until that moment, no reader would ever believe the bizarre world Tepper has created is supposed to be Earth.
A wonderful, thought-provoking book, The Visitor may be offensive to anyone who's deeply religious, but it is well worth the read.
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Atwood wants to write mainstream, respectable fiction, thus she refuses to call Oryx and Crake science fiction. I don't know who she thinks she's fooling, because that's the adjective that must be used to describe this dismal, futuristic book.
Corporations and cloning have taken over the world, leading to a man-made Apocalypse. Alternating between the lead-up to the event and the after-effects, we follow a rather pathetic young man who witnesses the birth of a new world order.
The writing is sharp and descriptive, and I can easily see why it appeals to people who don't generally read science fiction. However, as a sci-fi reader I see a lot of problems with the plot and execution of the story. Since Atwood claims she doesn't read or write science fiction, yet insists on writing in the genre, she clearly is not informed by ideas that the masters of sci-fi have already explored in depth. She thinks she's unique, but she's sadly mistaken. A little study on her part would have helped her write a book with more impact and intelligence, though it is still worth a read for those who are new to the genre's offerings.