Science Fiction Book Log

Since I cant possibly feel the desire to review every science fiction book I read - I only review ones I feel the need to talk about - I decided to keep a record of ones ive read here.  I may eventually post non-sci-fi books I read in the future, but since the list would be really lengthy otherwise, I am only going to post covers of books that are strictly science fiction.  If I remember what I thought of the book, ill leave a slightly arbitrary rating.  I need to make a metal post one of these days...

Isaac Asimov

Prelude to Foundation [1988] - 8/10

Forward the Foundation [1993] - 6/10

Foundation [1951] - 10/10

Foundation and Empire [1952] - 10/10

Second Foundation [1953] - 10/10

Foundation's Edge [1982] - 6/10

Foundation and Earth [1986] - 6/10

I cant move on until i say a little bit about one of my favorite science fiction epics: the Foundation Series.  Originally I started off by reading the original trilogy; im really glad I did.  The original series chronicles the invention of a science so powerful that it can predict the development of mankind on a large scale.  The inventor of the science becomes a universally deified icon who has determined how to prevent the fall of the galactic empire and establish a new one over top of the old one; he also created a few fail-safe measures as well.  What I found so fascinating about the Foundation trilogy was how well it visualized a futuristic galactic universe on a grand epic scale.  Character development was disposed of for an unrivaled epic journey; watching how all of the pieces fell into place as part of Hari Seldon's master plan was a tantalizing and riveting experience.  Despite everything being accounted for and predicted, there was a fair amount of suspense and surprise to keep even the critical reader interested; and a complexity that made re-reading the books of the original trilogy an enlightening experience to the true mathematical calculation of Asimov's orchestrated epic.  I know epic is an overused word nowadays, and I use it only when it truly applies.  The original series truly embodies the term.

The supplementary texts that Asimov wrote in the later years did not quite live up to the excitement of the trilogy however.  Instead of an overarching chronicle of Hari Seldon's master plan we get to see the journey of a single crew spanned across the plot of the final two books.  So instead of substance, we are supplemented with filler.  Although some of it generally interesting, the characters seemed to harp on the same issues and obsessions for page after page making it a bit tiresome and repetitive.  The breakneck pace and scope were lost, and eventually became derailed entirely by Asimov's ruined conclusion of the Foundation epic.  Prelude to Foundation wasnt too bad, but Forward the Foundation even bastardized Hari Seldon himself.  Ok, he still invents psychohistory, but it turns out that members of his team contributed towards the development of it equally if not more than he himself; which makes him out to be more of a figurehead than the true mastermind.  Therefore I do not consider anything outside of the original Foundation trilogy to be essential.  Actually they seemed to devalue my image of Hari Seldon as a supergenius and to view psychohistory as an unreliable ephemeral prediction of future development that cant predict the unpredictable.  God dammit, psychohistory was designed to fucking do so.  Hence I refuse to accept the concluding Foundation texts as canon.

The Caves of Steel [1954] - 9.5/10

The Naked Sun [1957] - 9/10

The Robots of Dawn [1983] - 6.5/10

Im mostly done with Asimov's renowned Robot series as well.  I prefer the Foundation series for it's grand ideas and scope, but the Robot series are full of detective style stories that feature foreign futuristic environments and plenty of robots to keep me interested.  I never thought I would actually enjoy books that were entirely about robots, but to my surprise I found these books to be fascinating.  The environments that Asimov paints are very intriguing in their functions as well as their lifestyle.  It was interesting to read about how Asimov envisions the way in which the mind of a robot processes and interprets the world while being ruled by a series of irrefutable laws.  The Robot series is definitely a classic for it's examples in theoretical robotics.

The Gods Themselves [1972] - 9.5/10

Objectively I would say this is Asimov's most advanced and well written novel.  Since it is a very complex novel, I am not going to bother explaining the plot (wikipedia has it if you are interested, but beware of spoilers).  A very thought-provoking novel with plenty of technical science from astronomy to chemistry and biology to keep it complex.  Definitely worth re-reading to fully understand this.

The End of Eternity [1955] - 9/10 

This is a pretty interesting mental mindfuck regarding the way we think about time and what may happen when these barriers are breached.  Themes that involve playing god and changing people's lives for the "better" as well as paradoxes are also contemplated throughout this book.  Without a doubt an extraordinary read.

 Nightfall - Isaac Asimov & Robert Silverberg [1990] - 7/10

An exciting adventure of people living in a world of eternal daylight that experience night for the first time.  This book is a psychological and thrilling exploit of the scientific realization of the night sky in aspects of astronomy and darkness psychology.  I know this used to be a short story of Asimov's before he and Silverberg re-worked it, and it seems like it drags on a bit.  I would be interested to read the short story version; perhaps the pacing is better than in the novel version.

Michael Crichton

While Crichton's books are typically easy reading thrillers, his books cover enough scientific background to qualify as legitimate science fiction.  The Jurassic Park series featured biologically accurate dinosaurs that conformed to the -at the time- modern theories of dinosaur movement, predatory style, diet, and temperament.  As a biochemist I found the proposed theory behind being able to recreate the dinosaurs a bit far-fetched and inaccurate in it's implications at times, but plausible enough not to let it prevent me from enjoying the book.  Crichton did a better job with the science in Andromeda Strain, but that was pretty much the entire point of the book whereas Jurassic Park focused more on archeology, ecology, and biology.

Jurassic Park [1990] - 8/10

The Lost World [1995] - 6.5/10

The Andromeda Strain [7/10]

Novel: Mission of Gravity

Mission of Gravity - Hal Clement [1953]

I stumbled across this book when searching the net for less popular, yet nonetheless classic, science fiction literature.  In particular I have taken an interest in the genre named “hard science fiction”; meaning science fiction in which the author pays specific attention to technical scientific details, giving the work plausibility and explanation.  

Clement starts off the book without preamble and directly in the midst of the main character Barlennan’s life as the captain of his boat named the Bree.  Eventually we soon realize that Barlennan is not on Earth and that he isn’t even human; he is of the species named Mesklinite on the planet Mesklin.  Clement enjoys playing with the reader’s sense of imagination by revealing physical properties of Mesklin and its inhabitants after certain events take place that are a direct result of their associated phenomena.  For example, Barlennan’s boat is described as being composed of many small flat floating rafts that are connected to each other by some sort of rope.   At first this seems like a very unusual way to build a boat.  Eventually it is explained that it is designed this way because of Mesklin’s unique gravity; the planet is elliptically shaped which results in a 3g environment at the equator and a 700g environment at the poles.  Because Barlennan comes from a region of high gravity, his boat must be designed in such a way so that the weight of the boat does not cave in when riding over wave crests in the ocean.  With Clement frequently writing this way throughout the story, one starts to imagine the hows and whys before they are explained; this makes for an interesting and critical reading experience.

The indigenous Mesklinites are intelligent life-forms that resemble centipedes with scorpion or crab-like claws.   We soon find them working with a group of humans who have visited Mesklin on a journey from space to learn more about the physics of gravity.  The intelligence of the Mesklinites is epitomized in the ease with which they learn how to speak English in order to communicate with the humans.  Despite their intelligence, the Mesklinite culture is not developed scientifically.  This results in them having many misconceptions about the shape of their own world, thinking that it is bowl shaped with a rim that one can fall off of.   This unusual misconception is explained to be an optical illusion of the rapid pressure change in Mesklin’s atmosphere due to high surface gravity that bends and distorts the refraction of light on the horizon.  Throughout the story themes of scientific development and innovation resonate with the unfolding of the plot that glorify the ever-expanding way that science can improve practical and informational aspects of society.  Also put forth is the idea that science develops much like the building of a puzzle; many small pieces may fit together with unexpected and powerful results:  ie without the knowledge of even simple aerodynamics a plane will not fly.

Although not thoroughly (though not entirely left out) in Mission of Gravity, the technical aspects behind Clement’s design of the planet Mesklin is admirable.  As explained in Mission of Gravity, Mesklin is a planet that features a strong and variable gravity due to the centrifugal force of its fast rotational speed; a day on Mesklin is equivalent to a little under 18 minutes on Earth.  To support native life-forms based on methane, Mesklin is accordingly cold to support soild, liquid, and gas states of methane: an average temperature of -170C.  Oceans of methane, that has a low boiling point, were under the control of a unique weather pattern controlled by a variety of factors including (but not limited to): a year of 1800 Earth days, an elliptical orbit around the sun where perihelion was brief, and a northern hemisphere that contains a polar ice cap and is only briefly exposed to midsummer when Mesklin is closest to it’s sun.  Apparently Clement went into more detail about the technical aspects of the scientifically based creation of Mesklin in an article he wrote for the June 1953 issue of Astounding Science Fiction named “Whirligig World”.

While I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and still believe that it deserves to be recognized as a classic work in the body of science fiction, there were a few things that I did not like.  For one, I didn’t like his descriptions.  Im not really the best at visualizing things, but I found Clement’s descriptions to be hard to follow.  There were a lot of places I had to re-read numerous times before I was able to see what he was trying to get at, and even then I thought his wording could have been more clear.  Also his depiction of “alien” life definitely seemed to draw a little too strongly from the human model.  Although I was aware of this popular criticism of Mission of Gravity before I read it, I dismissed it as being overly critical and a trite criticism of most alien depictions.  However after reading the book and allowing my opinions of it to culminate, I feel as though it is appropriate criticism.  There were cultures of Mesklinites that resembled Native Americans that featured bows and arrows and canoes.  And however slight, there was a suggestion of religious paranoia in the river people, of which seemed to allow Barlennan and his companions to pass through.  Also the flying culture that lived on the sea resembled our fishing and shipping industry, even requiring boating parties to have passport-like credentials.  Emotionally the Mesklinites seemed to have a psychology that mirrored human interaction, often exhibiting feelings of jealousy, pride, sympathy, and mutual respect.  The similarities keep going on from here, and the overall feeling of their interactions seemed very much like that between two humans of different races, let alone that of different worlds entirely.  It is obvious that Clement is more into scientific accuracy when it deals with the physical sciences as opposed to the life sciences.  

Overall this book was an interesting read and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes their science fiction with a bit of technical detail.  An astronomy or chemistry background would probably be recommended as a lot of this book’s redeeming values come from the technical aspects of these sciences.  Anyone into social science or psychology could probably sit this one out.  [6.5/10]