The Apolyton Science Fiction Discussion Group: September Nominations

[JohnT]

For having nominated August's book, The Man in the High Castle, Ajbera has selected the following theme for Septembers book:

Superhuman Abilities.

I.E., teleportation, psychic abilities, way above-average strength/intelligence, etc. For examples, he cited "The Demolished Man", "More than Human", and a George RR Martin novel whose name escapes me at this instance.

My nomination needs no introduction: Dune, by Frank Herbert.

Ajbera nominated Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human via email/PM.

He also asked if graphic novels were allowed. My inclination is to say "no", as part of my desire here is to keep the cost of these works to a minimum for all participants... meaning that I don't want anybody to shell out more than the cost of a new mass-market paperback as so to read the book. Since GN's can go above $20*, they kind of price themselves out of contention.

Discussion?

*Yes, I know you can buy them used. But the availability of a used book is quite uncertain, and used bookstores are dependent more upon the whims of the local market than new bookstores.

[Wraith]

Super human abilities, eh? Then I nominate "Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" by Haruki Murakami.

Unfortunately, I can't find any decent blurbs for it. Amazon practically doesn't have any, and the ones at Barnes and Noble are at the same time wrong and full spoilers...

Wraith
Quantum Mechanics -- the dreams that stuff is made of

[loinburger]

The Worthing Saga by Card. Deals with (extreme) telepathy, mind control, telekinetics, etc., and many of the societal benefits/problems that these could entail.

Edit: Here's a review from Amazon.com. Doesn't really contain any spoilers -- everything explicitly mentioned happens within the first chapter. Note that the review is not entirely accurate -- the book is kind of a collection of short stories, but not in the typical sense, since all of the stories use (approximately) the same characters and have the same central theme.

In the Worthing Saga, Card uses his gift of story-telling to weave a sort of exteneded fable, with a moral so distinctly and beautifully writ, that the reader cannot help but feel edified by it. In the beginning the character, Lared, and his family suffer what is called the "Day of Pain": on one day three people die and sorrow is felt the planetwide as never before. The next morning, Lared is milking his cows when he spots two people walking across the water to him: Jason and Justice.
My favorite part of Worthing Saga is Card's characters. He makes them very real, so that their suffering and their victories are palpable for me. Worthing Saga does not conform to any preplot of commercial fiction. In fact, many of the conflicts in the book that would in most books aspire to centrality instead fade to the side to allow room for the lofty moral, and the reader's own questioning. Like a Herman Hesse book, Card allows the reader to search for answers before they are given. [possible spoiler removed] Rather than creating some kind of Odyssean Hero, as most Science Fiction does, he pushes each hero aside one by one, till at the end the reader is left not with a kind of dear alter-ego he wishes he could be, but with a general feeling of affection towards the characters and a clear understanding of Card's message.
Card's greatest gift lends itself to meditative short-stories, and Worting Saga, a cluster of such stories, is one of his greatest works.

[ajbera]

I brought up graphic novels because I would've happily nominated Alan Moore's Watchmen.

The George R. R. Martin book I mentioned was actually a shared-universe series of which he was the editor and contributor, the Wild Card series. It posits an alien meta-virus that is unleashed on NY in 1946 that kills most, horribly mutates others, and a small percentage acquire extraordinary abilities (all psionic based), including flight, teke, super-strength, invulnerability, etc. Basically, a shared universe with superheroes (and villains). A whole lotta fun.

However, both Watchmen and the Wild Card books are... excessive? I don't know if that's the appropriate term for what I'm trying to express. Perhaps it's the seriousness with which topics are examined that separates Watchmen and the Wild Card books from things like Dune or More Than Human, but I don't know if that's true, either. Watchmen is certainly serious...

So, in addition to book nominations, please give your opinions as to whether certain types of books are inappropriate for the purposes of these discussions, even though they may be SF and fit the given theme. For example, my theme (Superhuman Abilities) was strongly influenced by what I'm reading (Wild Cards) and playing (Freedom Force) currently. Given this theme, I would nominate More Than Human far more readily than Wild Cards, because the former seems like a more serious attempt to tackle the subject than the latter.. but am I wrong? Am I off-base here? Your opinions, please...

[SlowwHand]

If you've not read The Green Mile, I would highly recommend.
If you've seen the movie, or not, I'd highly recommend.
By Stephen King.

[TCO]

WALDO AND MAGIC INCORPORATED - Heinlien

THE SANTAROGA BARRIER - Herbert

[Cruddy]

Can't recall entering the Sci-Fi Discussion before - but "The Galactic Millieu" series by Julian May has to be up there for superhuman abilities.

So, if my nomination is allowed, I'd say The Many Colored Land by Julian May.

EDIT: Oh dear, a short review. Well, there's this tiny writeup from Amazon...

When a one-way time tunnel to Earth's distant past, specifically six million B.C., was discovered by folks on the Galactic Milieu, every misfit for light-years around hurried to pass through it. Each sought his own brand of happiness. But none could have guessed what awaited them. Not even in a million years....

And this more substantial chunk from SFReview.

As fresh and original as any book in the field, The Many-Colored Land, the deservedly acclaimed first novel in a series of series, takes readers on an amazing journey from the distant future to the distant past, using unexpected routes all along the way. In The Saga of Pliocene Exile, the human race has been discovered by benevolent aliens who have invited us to join a galaxy-spanning federation of sorts known as the Galactic Milieu, offering us interstellar travel, countless worlds for the colonizing, and the ability for certain gifted humans to discover and develop various "metapsychic" skills. The catch is, of course, that we must adhere to the strict, more or less socialist rules and agenda of the Milieu itself, which, while pretty much completely benevolent, still don't encourage anyone to be much of a free spirit.

Hopefully non-readers will have an idea what the book is about.

[ajbera]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
If you've not read The Green Mile, I would highly recommend.
If you've seen the movie, or not, I'd highly recommend.
By Stephen King.

Excellent book, and the movie sure did it justice. However, I think this may be considered fantasy rather than SF, as no scientific rationale is ever presented for Coffey's abilities (in fact they are (IIRC) attributed to God).

So, I don't think this would qualify for the SF book discussion, but it should be read by everyone anyway 'cause it's terrific.

BTW, are we limiting candidates to the (specifically) SF genre, or are fantasy books and loosely-SF books allowed?

[st_swithin]

J. Strazcinski's (sp.?) 'Rising Stars'

Sheesh, next thing you know you'll be a grammar and spelling nazi too.

:P

[Lonestar]

Orsan Scott Card's Shadow of the Hagemon

ou only get one nomination st_swithin

[Mordoch]

I'm nominating Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. The book deals with a future in which telepaths are common and regulary employeed by corperations. One fairly unique aspect of the book is its focus on what telepathic communication would really be like. (Its not another book were telepathy is just like ordinary conversation.)

The premise of the book is that in a world where premediated murder is believed to be impossible since telepaths would detect that man's thought before he commits the crime, one man sets out to prove this wrong. Ben Reich is a ordinary non-telepathic human who attempts to carefully plan a murder and get away with it. The book features many aspects of a detective novel and some very creative methods employed by Ben Reich to commit his crime.

Fans of JMS and the TV Show Babylon 5 will find it interesting to note how heavily he borrows from the book in creating the PSI Corps and telepaths in the B5 universe, and just why he chose to name the prominent telepath in the show Alfred Bester. The book won the first Hugo award ever given in 1953 and remains a sci-fi classic today. The story remains a fast paced exciting read with inovative ways of exploring the possibilities presented by telepathy.

[JohnT]

Ajbera asked:

are we limiting candidates to the (specifically) SF genre, or are fantasy books and loosely-SF books allowed?

I used to have a rather long introductory post that opened up each nomination thread, but I haven't put it up in a couple of months. Let me reintroduce it:

This club doesn't have many rules, but what there are pretty much involve nominations and voting:

1. You must have read the book you are nominating.
2. Please nominate only 1 book, as to allow others' selections to be listed. If you nominate more than one, the first one listed will be chosen as your nomination. To change nominations, edit your original post.
3. The books must be science fiction and must be properly "themed" (see the next rule).
4. The person who nominated the winning book gets to pick the "theme" of the next month's nominations.

It would also be appreciated if you could link to a good description (Amazon, sfsite.com, whatever) of the book. Try to make sure that your book is currently published or widely available.

On the 15th (or so)*, I will post a thread listing the nominations with a multiple-choice poll which will allow you to select up to three (3) books. The poll will be timed to end at the end of the month, and the winner will be the book we read for June. If there is a tie, I make the decision as to which book to read.

We have discussed a number of books that are have been seriously challenged as to whether they are exactly "science fiction" (Handmaids Tale, Man in the High Castle (as well as the attendant "is alternate history 'science fiction?' " debate)), some I've allowed, some I haven't. If you could make a case for it being SF, it'll probably be allowed. This club considers alternate history to be SF, btw.

OTOH, I don't care much for fantasy and it, therefore, is not really within the purview of this group - but if someone decided on the theme "classic fantasy", I'll probably allow it just for variety's sake. (hint)

[Drake Tungsten]

My nomination needs no introduction: Dune, by Frank Herbert.

I love you, JohnT.

[JohnT]

So, in addition to book nominations, please give your opinions as to whether certain types of books are inappropriate for the purposes of these discussions, even though they may be SF and fit the given theme.

The most important thing is the question "is there enough here to carry a discussion"? The second most important consideration is the question "Given all these unknown schedules, will people have a chance to get and read the book?" A series of novels are not really "nonimation worthy" because they would require a too large investment of time and money for a lot of people, nor is a novelization of some dumb movie.

But most importantly, I think that if one nominates a book that they should do so knowing enough about it to say some original or meaningful comments about the work, rather than the usual "I liked it when...". You should, at the very least, have enough faith in your book to defend it against detractors.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Damn, JohnT just won this, and simply by being the moderator-type of this competition .