Science Fiction Surprise

Here's something I didn't expect before his death...  Ray Bradbury finally allowed Fahrenheit 451 to be published as an ebook.  He has traditionally been anti-internet, and specifically against ebooks.

Somewhat related is the subject matter of Fahrenheit 451.  Most people who read it think that the main theme is censorship, and it's not difficult to see why.  But it's not.  And you know why I know it's not?  Because Bradbury, the author himself, insists that it is not.  Rather, it is on how television and other mass media is in conflict with written literature, and is a danger to reading.  And how technology can break down communication between people.

And while I think that's a little harsh on technology (after all, reading books at the table or with family also gets in the way of talking with each other), I do consider it when you see a table of people together at a pub or restaurant, and most, if not all, are busy texting or whatever on their smartphones.

Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

I've been on an old sci-fi kick, stuff from the 60s and earlier.  In reading The Pocket Book of Science Fiction, (published in early 1943), I came across "By the Waters of Babylon," by Stephen Vincent Benét.  (Excitingly, the book itself is in near-perfect condition.  As a 69-year old paperback.  My used book store rocks hard.)   Among the better and more engaging post nuclear war disasters I've read.  But wait... 1943.  And the author actually published it in 1937 before it was included in this anthology.  Before the war.  Before the Manhattan Project was started.  No, the atom bomb was not mentioned specifically, but it felt so much like that was the disaster that I didn't even question it.

Some of the beneficial technology, I can see scientists specifically working towards duplicating the ideal described.  The end of civilisation as we know it?  I'd like to think that that wasn't a specific goal, at least not to the point of attempting to emulate an awesome story.  It's creepy that I at first assumed it was from my 1950s or 1960s literature, before checking the copyright page.

End of the world and literature

While full-length novels are fantastic, especially Heinlein and the classics, SF short stories are sometimes the way to go.  You can find new authors that way, without having to commit to a potentially awful book.

One that hasn't really ever completely left my mind since I read it sometime in the past year is World Without End, by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre.  Even that story on its own makes it worth buying the collection The Mammoth Book of the End of the World.  (Try to find it in a local independent book store if you can!)  Although it sounds like he was a strange and unstable man in life, I will be looking up some of his other works.

But then today I came across In Fading Suns and Dying Moons by John Varley.  That one is definitely getting another reading or seven.  Another end of the world story, with a more sudden and defined end than the aforementioned story.  Which in turn, makes me think of the absolutely brilliant The Nine Billion Names of God, by Arthur C. Clarke.

What is it about these kinds of stories that can draw one in so thoroughly, even a not-very-often morbid person?  How do some people manage to draw you into their imagination in such a way that it sticks, possibly forever?

And how sad is it that at least in Ontario, fewer children seem to be reading for pleasure?  Books were my world when I was little.  When I needed them, books were there as an escape, as a journey, as an enhancement.  As any freaking thing I wanted.  Even now, it's nice to curl up on the couch with a warm drink and a new (or old) book.


P.S.  Yes, in fact I did discover an online version of The Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction today!