The Illustrated Man – Ray Bradbury

Another short story compilation, but tweaked slightly to present a set of stories told by a drifter that all relate to his unfortunate condition. Aside from the massive Everyman’s Library omnibus of short stories, this is the third novel-length and novel-published book of Bradbury’s I have read that is actually more of a collection of short stories: The Martian Chronicles and Dandelion Wine being the other two.

The other two are also much stronger. This one has some great stuff, I enjoyed quite a few of the stories, but for the most part the book seemed to drag on and on without actually providing much suspense or any reason to keep reading more. So it took me a long time to finish. Some of the stories had suspense – like the one about the astronauts in the explosion who are all drifting through space alone until they crash into something or are taking out by something (speaking of which, isn’t that the plot for the new George Clooney/Sandra Bullock movie?) – but they were all over so quickly.  

Nothing felt really gripping, or profound. Just a bunch of stories that all featured a rocket in some way or another. The one about the Rocketman who does not want his son to grow up to be one like him was probably the closest thing to the profound story that I have come to associate with Bradbury. Either that or the final story about the Illustrated Man himself. They were both kind of fucked up. But for the most part, everything felt kind of meh. Sort of feel indifferently about this one, but I am glad I am at least tearing through the Bradbury section of my library.

Also of note, just after I finished this book, the Simpsons released their latest Halloween special “Treehouse of Horrors” episode, which featured an opening sequence directed by legendary horror/thriller filmmaker Guillermo del Toro. Why is this of significance? See if you can spot why:

Fountains of Paradise

Arthur C. Clarke is known for his dedicated research and devout worship of all things science in his books as much as he is known for eventful, mind-boggling “getaway” endings that attempt to lose the reader. I made the second half of that sentence up but most people I know of who watch his movies/read his books agree with it, so let us move forward.

I love this guy. And I am very glad one of my friends recommended him for this month’s (January, actually) book club item; whereby “recommend” I mean I berated him for not having enough recommendations to bring to the party and promptly told him I’d have no more input into his career, education or personal life unless he toss in the fifth of my four recommended books into the list (I’m exaggerating, I will freely admit. It was the 7^th of four books I was allowed to add to the list of our Book Club. Bratty much?) and we all agree to read it.

That being said, everyone in the group seems rather thankful it made its way into the list. It was recommended as a book for “people who like Arthur C. Clarke before he got weird” and I interpret that as “before his writing got real shitty,” which some of his later books definitely are. It represents the last of an era of greatness for Clarke (again, according to people whose opinions on which I rely), and was written in 1979. Keep that year in mind if you pick up any other books of his. Think of it as Pre-Sequels-to-Space-Odyssey-and-Other-Crap.

This one is really great though, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The main character is an engineer, so BOOM, it is a favourite of mine already. Not merely an engineer but a damn experienced one, and Clarke knows much about the field, more than people who work alongside engineers, I might add (for those of you who don’t know me on a personal level, I am an engineer. A shit one, granted, but one that understands, however poorly, the requirements of the field).

Clarke absolutely nails the thought process of the engineer and his attitude toward others. Ambitious, always hoping the next project is bigger than the one before, doing more to ensure it is well funded, innovative, safe, aggressive and unique, and best of all, well-funded. He even goes so far as to pointing out, upon hearing about the economic implications/impacts of his greatest project: “You don’t need to explain economics to me, I’m an engineer.” I believe it is a conversation with an accountant. Which is exactly right, for most us in the engineering field. Not that there is any hard feeling between us and accountants (which, of course, there are), but that we are scolded/praised so much by the powers that be on the value of all of our innovations, that by now we are experts on the economics of each solution to each problem. Granted, we still miss a few things, but in the big scope, we have all had enough feeback and criticism by upper-management to cover our collective asses.

Other things I loved about this book: Starglider. A supermassive, hyper-intelligent data gathering satellite that comes through to make contact with any and all life forms/life sustaining planets! Could you just imagine the possibilities? It can learn new languages rapidly and thereby easily communicate with us. Oh the things we’d tell it! Turns out we send it, straight away, the Encyclopedia Britannica and a few other bits. Then we let philosophers talk to it and it promptly talks down to us on the basis of religion, which made me re-think my Amazon.com Wishlist queue of “The Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas”. I mean read the damn book because I can’t sum it up in a funny way for you, but trust me, aliens arguing our “God” with us is funny. Funny is capped off by hilarious when the humans realize their religious views make them look like violent cukes, potentially, and then further come to the realization that, “SHIT! It’s too late to ask for the Encyclopedia Britannica we sent up back!”

What I like about this book is that is has a great pace, almost like a good movie, but ties in science, engineering, made-up history and religion in all the ways I appreciate in a good book. Religion, especially that of “this is sacred ground” all too often impedes the progression of important scientific research. I see it often with the monumentally large binocular telescope atop the mountain in my backyard (Google Mt. Graham Large Binocular Telescope and I bet half the articles of the first few pages are dedicated to Anti-Observationalists’ propaganda). But there are ways to defeat religion with logic, and this one happens in such a way that you do not have to feel the dirty capitalist project engineers unfairly exploited the environment. Things just needed to move on, and they happened from the inside out for the pilgrims. Plus some needling from aliens.

My favourite quote of all during the book, however, was when the engineer is trying desperately to reach a crew of scientists working from space back down towards Earth on the tower as it descends through space to reach the atmosphere:

                “If Morgan had been able to pray, he would have done so.”

That sentence said so much to me about hope, hard work, science, logic and reason, and religion.

All in all, an absolutely wonderful and fun book. Its non-linear fashion of writing is a reminder to me of what makes a great author. The immense amount of science and research put into it also reminds me of how some Sci-Fi authors refuse to half-ass their fantasy worlds. And lastly, the imagery in this book during all the activity, when described rather in-depth by Clarke, is beautiful and makes me proud of our accomplishments and knowledge gained in the time since its writing.

The Man Who Sold The Moon

Early Robert Heinlein! Always a great read, no matter where in his career you find yourself as you dig through  the gems of his literature.

I read this book not too long after watching the History Channel series, The Men Who Built America. Which is about how strong armed, cut-throat, ruthless, ambitious, and never-satisfied our turn of the century (the earlier one) entrepreneurs were. It chronicles the corporate lives of Cornelius “The Commodore” Vanderbilt, JP Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, and to some small extent, Tesla, Ford and Charles Schwab.

The fun thing is how people revere what these assholes did for American free market Capitalism. Which is to say, they forced federal regulation in a lot of areas. They also were key in bringing about labour unions, ending monopolies, and breaking ground on federal anti-trust lawsuits. Plus a few other things in terms of stock market and inner-company control were made illegal after these guys had their way. I mean, whoa, I know they were crooked back then, but to be the wealthiest humans in the entire world and battling like that, trying to end the other moguls? It was crazy!

How does that relate to this book? Well free market capitalism, when we can find loopholes in the federal government, really helps the rich get richer. But in this instance, the rich man, Delos David “D.D.” Harriman, isn’t out to make himself personally wealthy just for the fuck of it (like Steve Jobs). He is out to do it and raise enough money to get us to the moon. And eventually, get us to expand to more than just this tiny planet (which isn’t dying, by the way).

The concept of expansion, colonization in space is favourite of mine in Science Fiction, I feel we need to help support that. Companies like Planetary Resources backed by Google billionaires trying to expand our natural resources, Blue Origin backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Red Bull with their Stratos jump are all examples of privately funded space exploration opportunities that provide more science and learning than NASA alone could ever dream to offer. And I like all that. And so does Robert Heinlein.

The difference is that he wrote this in 1949 before NASA was what we think of when we think space exploration. So he wrote about a corporate mogul, a real wealthy bastard swindling his way to get ownership rights to the land, and mineral rights, and a space craft, for the goddamn moon! Maybe it is difficult for some to put themselves in the position of how it could be exciting to try and claim the moon in the name of exploration and exploitation in the days before NASA, but not for me.

How does he do it? Simple. First there are some mergers and investors coming online with loads of more cash to support this venture and claim some part of the moon once they are there, plus corporate advertising giants and why not sell out to the media and take the highest bidding studio to make the documentary of the project? Then there are children. Like 40 million of them or whatever. He says if they each send a nickel to him, he’ll have their names individually engraved on a plaque that is going to be planted there as a memorial for the first ever lunar landing. But if they send 1 dollar, they get an autograph from the astronauts, plus other cheap swag! He neglects to mention this plague’s engravings are microscopic so as not to take up weight on the craft’s journey. He also sets up a non-profit organization, like National Geographic or B&MGF shit, which allows for a massive amount of money to roll in from people interesting in this project, and since it is led by the same tycoons all their work goes to it, but at the last moment the non-profit foundation makes a massive donation to the project. Awesome.

It is a future history tale, so there are chapters of other things going on, plus some corporate/federal regulation fights over patents that aren’t so pretty, including some pretty damn accurate conspiracy theories. Or at least, close to what we have seen in our history with some innovative minds *cough* Tesla! *cough*cough*.

I love American capitalism when it works this way, and I love people’s ambitions to get us off this fucking rock, before everyone goes mental. Let us expand! Let us conquer! And regardless of what that tree hugging hippie next to you says, don’t ever lose that ambition and drive to conquer all, it is our key to getting off this fucking rock and putting our roots in other places. Earth first, moon next, Mars after that, and later on, the rest of the stars!