Blurbs from the Branch: A Futuristic Spin on an Old Tale

                When She Woke, by Hillary Jordan is a fascinating retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic, The Scarlet Letter, with an original twist. The novel is set in a futuristic America where separation of church and state is a thing of the past, and criminals are punished by having the pigment of their skin changed to match the nature of their crime. After having an affair with her married religious leader, Hannah Payne illegally aborts their unborn child. She is caught and becomes a red “chrome,” the sentence for murder. Not only must Hannah then deal with what it means to be an outcast in a rigid society, but also change how she views herself after realizing she might not be the person she once thought she was. I was riveted throughout the whole book and couldn’t put it down. As a fan of The Scarlet Letter, it was fun to see how Jordan reinterprets the story. I highly recommend this to both old lovers of Hawthorne’s tale, as well as those who have never read the original.

 -Becca

Checking In: Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman

About three weeks ago, I was watching television with my father, and we saw a preview for a new film called In Time which caught our attention. It’s this dystopian movie where everybody stops aging after age 25 and is forced to die instantly one year after that, unless they can earn extra time to live. There is no limit on how much time can, in theory, be stockpiled, which means someone could conceivably live forever. Time is used as a currency (managed by a sinister figure called the Timekeeper) and is the tool by which the rich dominate the poor – by hoarding all the time in the world and simply outliving those who would oppose them.

“That sounds like an interesting concept,” said my dad. “But I don’t want to watch some stupid movie with Justin Timberlake in it. I wonder if it’s based on a book? I’d read a book about this.”

I told him that it was very possible, and that I’d look into it. After all, many Hollywood films are born when a producer hears about a good book and buys the rights to it. I made a quick search on Wikipedia, I found the film, and was stunned to discover that it was not simply based on a piece of written work, but in fact it was subject to a lawsuit by Harlan Ellison, the famed speculative fiction writer, for plagiarism. The work in question? Not a novel, but a short story, entitled “Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman“.

I had never heard of this story before, and so I quickly found it in the Short Story Collection here at the library. Despite the fact that it is only several pages long, the similarities are remarkable. The story is set in a civilization built entirely around the concept of being on time, where people pay their taxes according to the sum total of how late they’ve been during the previous year, and the government has the power to “turn off” individuals who misuse more time than they’ve got left in their lives. The anti-hero of the tale is the Harlequin, a man who, according to Ellison, “wasn’t much to begin with, except a man who had no sense of time.” More I dare not reveal to you, as the story is more delightful the less you know, except perhaps I should say that it contains one of the most delicious pieces of prose involving jellybeans ever to grace the English language.

In the end, Harlan Ellison dropped the suit against the film In Time on the condition that his name be put into the film credits, and it seems proper that it should be. The movie obviously drew on “Repent, Harlequin!” for inspiration and arguably more than that. This tale is especially relevant in today’s political and economic climate, as people run around and grumble and feel frustrated that the world just refuses to spin the right way for “the ninety-nine percent”, as the Occupiers have been saying; it may make you wonder what a Harlequin might be able to accomplish today if only they had enough jellybeans.

Checking In: The First “Space Opera” – The Skylark of Space

If the term “space opera” comes up in conversation, its association is often with Star Wars- a sweeping tale of archetypal protagonists, who all embody absolute good in one form or another, battling (in space) against the forces of absolute evil. In space opera, there is always room for a villain in a cape, an epic space battle, a fight against impossible odds for the freedom of something-or-other, and of course, a healthy serving of captured maidens. Whereas much of what people call “classic literature” is studied for its discretion, complexity, and subtlety, there is a raw quality in a story like Star Wars, or any space opera, which affects us on a different, more sensational level (and for some people, a more fundamental one).

Although Star Wars is almost certainly the most widely known example of this genre, it is by no means the first- nor, in fact, was the first example of space opera even a film. The earliest known example of classic space opera is a book called The Skylark of Space, written between 1915 and 1921 by a baker named E.E. “Doc” Smith. The story first hit the shelves in 1928, in the science fiction journal “Amazing Stories”, and it immediately whipped around and changed the face of sci-fi.  Whereas much of the science fiction of the time was either incredibly fantastic and implausible (think “moon made of cheese”) or small mutations and repurposings of existing technology (like a clever new use for a radio, or prediction of a modern technology such as credit cards), Smith delivered a story about a meticulous scientist who accidentally discovers the secret to unlimited velocity, builds his own spaceship, travels the galaxy with a band of friends, gets trapped inside the gravity well of a “dead star” (predicting the existence of neutron stars twenty years before “real” astronomers did) encounters aliens with highly developed civilizations, and battles an archenemy every bit as methodical as he is, one who is intent on using all this newfound technology for domination and mayhem. What makes Skylark so distinctive, though, is that compared to other writers of the era, an astonishing amount of Smith’s speculation and technology is actually based in hard science (or what was understood about hard science at the time)! The result is a story that reads like pulp fiction, but is infinitely more engaging. Despite the campy dialogue and gender stereotypes, the reader will find themselves invested in Dick Seaton and his quest to defeat the diabolical DuQuesne, and perhaps even wanting to track down the increasingly hard-to-find sequels to this classic sci-fi gem.

Off the Shelf: Falling into Fiction with China Mieville

So I recently read a pile of China Mieville’s fiction, leaving me to ask, why didn’t I read these books sooner?  A true master of setting, his books meld the beautiful and bizarre in a way I’ve never encountered before.  While they may not be for everyone, for those who are unafraid of the unfamiliar, the rewards are well worth it. 

Perdido Street Station:  His second novel and the first to receive numerous awards and international success, Perdido Street Station is a fantasy story with a volatile mix of brutal politics, meaningful characters, and bizarre monsters set in the city of New Crobuzon .  It follows Isaac, a human scientist in a relationship with an insect-headed Kehpri woman, and his attempt to stop a pod of hypnotic monsters that feed on minds.  Mieville populates his city with bizarre and frightening characters such as mutated crime lords, a spider that speaks only in free verse poetry, a hive-mind of castaway machinery, and plenty of other oddities you won’t find anywhere else.  His novels The Scar and Iron Council take place in the same world. 

Kraken:  This is a frightening journey into an unfamiliar London riddled with strange magic, psychotic villains, and hundreds of religious cults, each doing what they can to bring about the end of the world in their own way.  When the giant squid and its tank is stolen from the British Museum of Natural History, Billy Harrow is unwittingly forced along in an occult investigation that quickly transforms from unbelievable to very nearly absurd.  Kraken is Mieville’s dark comedy driven by ridiculous ideas, and the result is a twisted mix-up of finely crafted plot, odd-ball characters and a whole lot of fun.  I’ve never enjoyed the end(s) of the world quite so much.                

Embassytown: Mieville’s latest novel is the distant science-fiction account of communication between two races—humans hundreds of generations apart from ourselves, and the Areikei—aliens whose language only consists of truth.  A beautiful parley on these themes of language and humanity, Embassytown is science fiction as it should be written—otherworldly, compelling, and harrowingly resonant even after the finale.  China Mieville is a marvel at his craft, and his work continues to impress me.  I can’t wait for the next one, due May 2012 if the rumors are right. 

- Rob

Mary Doria Russell – an author to follow into any genre

I picked up Doc, a new novel by Mary Doria Russell just because it is about Doc Holliday, a mild obsession of mine. Before I had finished it, I recognized the genius of the writer, a true and articulate student of human nature, and had a stack of her other books waiting for me.

I have been reading little but  Russell for a few weeks now. Her intelligent and meticulous research combined with an ability to keep even her most well-known, clichéd or notorious characters on an fresh and understandable human level drew me in right away. Dreamers Of The Day, about the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference that created the modern Middle East, did not at first glance seem like a fun read. It is, though; Russell brings T.H. Lawrence, Winston Churchill and Gertrude Bell to life with wit and humor, as well as inventing a schoolteacher to give us the perspective of an “ordinary” person of the times. I learned a lot about what is the basis for much strife today-  history with the sweetness of the well-told story to make it easy to swallow. A Thread Of Grace shines light on refugees in WWII and the Italian Resistance, breaking the heart of the reader while reminding us that there is true good in the world.  

Her first and  most famous book, The Sparrow is science fiction, which is why I have ignored it for years, despite fabulous reviews and prizes and recommendations from friends. It and the  sequel novel Children Of God are entirely literate sci fi, and as with all her books, the questions of fundamental human beliefs and the nature of the universe runs through the prose without bogging down the story in the slightest. Everything she has written is well worth reading, and is a joy to recommend to readers who want their facts well-researched and their stories invested with human drama .

- Alison